Complementing a high style return air grille with a hand knotted Nepalese wool arts and crafts rug makes perfect sense. Like an air grille an arts and crafts rug can be expected to last many decades. In fact, many of the original rugs from the early 1900s are still in existence, although have probably suffered inordinate wear dur to the fact that the knot count at the time was a tiny fraction of what you get today. A modern arts and crafts rug has about 75 knots per inch. Even though that is excellent, it is still a good idea to use a high quality pad underneath. For starters, it makes an arts and crafts rug feel plush and good. But more importantly, it provides a shock absorber type effect and greatly improves the longevity of your arts and crafts rug.
The dimensions of an arts and crafts rug vary somewhat from piece to piece due to the hand made nature. A machine made arts and crafts rug is typically made of something like nylon and can be expected to have exact dimensions. How boring is that? Sometimes perfect is not so perfect after all, and that is true of an arts and crafts rug as well as many other things in life.