Walking on wood: Handmade, wooden area rugs available

There's something new underfoot: wooden area rugs.

The handmade rugs, imported from Israel, are made of slender pine slats attached to a flexible anti-slip backing and painted with bright contemporary folk-art motifs -- birds, fish, leaves and flowers.

"If you want warm and fuzzy, they probably aren't for you. But they won't fray like the rugs you put in front of your kitchen sink," says Lisah Bernstein, who founded the Rockville, Md., venture called Kakadu America with her husband, David, after admiring the original Kakadu collection in Jerusalem, where they were living at the time.

The rugs' slatted construction allows them to be rolled up like conventional area rugs, and a matte-lacquered surface protects them from water, heat and scratches, she says. Prices start at $99 for a 22-by-40-inch rug. A 40-by-60-inch carpet is $245, and a 40-inch round, $165.

The company's line of handpainted wood products also includes small tables, CD stands, clocks, place mats, vases and candlesticks.

Each piece is made to order and arrives in four to six weeks (301-299-3904 or 866-452-5238).