Photo by Robin Romano

One of our home wishes is hardwood flooring. I look forward to it for many reasons, and one reason is so I can choose an amazing rug for our living room! Just this week I found out about a nonprofit that certifies child-labor-free rugs called GoodWeave. They captured my attention right away, not just for the rugs, but because they have an important mission!

This January, GoodWeave USA launched its One in a Million campaign to create awareness and build demand for the handmade rugs the nonprofit certifies as child-labor-free. The campaign draws its inspiration from the estimated one million children exploited in the carpet-making industry when GoodWeave began its work in 1994, and the one million or more knots that typically go into a handcrafted rug. “We hope the campaign inspires consumers and designers, who can help change the fate of one in a million children by sourcing a certified rug – a rug that is truly one in a million,” said Nina Smith, GoodWeave USA’s executive director.

Photo by Robin Romano

GoodWeave has helped reduce the incidence of child labor in South Asia’s handmade rug industry by an estimated 75 percent. However, 250,000 child laborers are still estimated to be illegally working in the rug industry. According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2010 “List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor,” rugs are produced by child and/or forced labor in five countries, including India, Nepal and Afghanistan. In 2010, GoodWeave certified four percent of handmade rugs imported to the U.S., while the new campaign seeks to capture a six percent market share by year-end, bringing the organization ever closer to its ultimate goal of ending child labor in the industry.

GoodWeave certified rugs are available in a wide range of prices, sizes, styles and designs from nearly 80 rug designers in more than 1,000 retail outlets & showrooms across North America. Programs funded by certified rug sales and donations provide former child laborers and at-risk children with rehabilitation, daycare, schooling, vocational training and other essential services.

If you are in the market for a new rug for your home, be sure to visit GoodWeave and have a look at what they have to offer. What could be better than getting a gorgeous rug and helping a good cause in the process?

*GoodWeave did not compensate me for posting this information. I just felt their cause was important and want to help support them in their work.*

Yes, I will admit it. Sometimes I have house envy.

We live in a floor plan that is common in our area, the four level split. It’s a floor plan that presents it’s own unique set of challenges, and a floor plan that lacks a bit of style. We do what we can to make changes and make it our own, but there are things, structural things, that we just can’t change. And so, I get jealous over things like this:

Those windows!! All that light!! And did you see the floors?

And jealous over things like this:

The pool, the patio, and that house! Our home is so dull from the outside, so non-descript. Not one bit like the house in that photo. Our house doesn’t have any fun details either, like so many older homes do. No moldings, nothing really that makes it stand out as one style.

And as for space, they are quiet small and broken up (after all, they are spread out over 4 levels). The open concept floor plans we all crave are certainly not in our home.

But, it is our home. And we love it. And who says a little house envy now and then is a bad thing?