Our Main Bathroom Complete with Folded Bathmat
It's definitely Autumn. The weather has turned wetter, wilder and the nights are drawing in. I love October. It's my birthday month but more than that I love the colours, rich reds, deep browns and russet. The leaves turn on the trees and fall so that I can kick them up. I love the light, it's lower angle makes for a long golden hour lasting most of a sunny afternoon. the feeling of being enclosed again as the nights draw in. It's not a time to resist urges to hunker down and get cosy. Embracing the need to refuel for winter is part of the delights of Autumn. Warm puddings made with apples or blackberries, poached pears, soups and all things casserole. Then come the pumpkins. I used to resist but actually the colours and shapes are as much a part of Autumn as jumpers and boots.
Seasonal Display Outside the Front Door
I've been changing things up for Autumn around the garden. No big changes for the borders at this stage although on days when I'm feeling slightly more energetic than usual, I do try to tidy a very small area. However, the great pot change over is slowly taking place - summer bedding ripped away to give winter bedding and bulbs a chance. Winter bedding is an optimistic description. Let's face it choice is very limited. Horrendous miniature 'basket' plants (smaller versions of more favourable bigger brothers in the border), violas or generally flowers that will be ruined by the first frosts. I like to plump for violas (what's not to love, it's their little faces, and they will survive the winter and have a go in Spring too), heucheras, a leaf colour thing and maybe a hellebore or two if I'm splashing out. I keep my ivy from year to year as I can't bring myself to keep spending on a plant that grows madly in other parts of the garden. I think there's another blog on winter pots faux pas and pitfalls.
Those plants that hope to make it into the greenhouse each year to overwinter are building up and taking their place. Others are rejected as they have underperformed or I grow tired of them. It's a ruthless time of year in the garden. There's plenty of cutting back to do. I tend to do some but leave the most statuesque stems for the first frost in the hope of That Picture.
Pumpkins and Gourds in the Greenhouse for Autumn
My Autumn styling starts in the garden and greenhouse and slowly makes its way more subtly into the house. My outdoor tables get a restyle with a small pot display that will last through Autumn and most of the winter. The front door gets a new wreath and an Autumn glow. This year, as it's a big birthday for me, I'm hosting a dinner and little party so I shall be styling up the dining room. The colour theme is very autumnal with deep purple and orange. I have some gorgeous deep coloured Autumn heathers that I'm hoping will hold on (just over a week to go), physalis Chinese Lanterns and of course pumpkins. I've started the decorating already with an Autumn look branch transformation, using dried grasses, physalis Chinese Lanterns and waxed Autumn leaves.
Close Up of my Autumn Hanging Branch in the Dining Room
I don't usually get seasonal upstairs but actually the blankets for the beds are out and this year I've added bath mats to the bathrooms. Not necessarily thought of as seasonal perhaps maybe more practical but I've not felt the need before now. This is the season for long cosy baths with candles so why not cosy up that bathroom for the season too? My bathrooms tend to have extra plants to contend with at this time of year as the last of the tenders come back inside for winter. This makes the space feel more alive and adds to that feeling of enclosure that bathing in candle light gives. Adding a bathmat covers the hard floor surface and softens the look well. In the past, I've been a fan of the duckboard (a wooden slatted board) which feels great to step onto from the bath or shower and the wood can add to a natural biophilic look bathroom. This time though I've gone for comfort and it feels opulent.
Bathmats have been around for almost as long as baths. The gentry did not have want to step out onto the wooden floor or indeed have been encouraged to step out onto what, let's face it, wouldn't have been a particularly clean carpet in those days. A 'foot towel' was quite a common item. I'm not sure if this is more to keep any foot based infection away from the rest of the body or because the feet would rarely have stayed clean for long. Foot towels soon became bathmats. Bathmats retained their popularity throughout the carpeted bathroom phase in the twentieth century. My Mum was an advocate preferring a contrasting colour to both the carpet and the coloured bathroom suite. They were practical additions though, readily or at least regularly washed along with the pedestal mat for the toilet (but let's not go there). There was a period around the turn of the century (I still can't quite cope with that phrase in relation to the 2000s) when bath mats were not considered fashionable. Tiled floors were (and remain) the thing to have in a bathroom and mats were considered an unsanitary and unnecessary part of the design. Keeping the floor clean and dry was easy enough to do. With the addition of underfloor heating as the latest luxury, bathmats were not needed in the same way. Our little feet were kept warm, the floor dried easily, we could wipe down or mop the floor clean in a swoop. So why then is the bathmat back?
Not as many of us as we would like have a bathroom with underfloor heating and the same moment of stepping onto a cold floor remains. We do however have tiles and when they are wet they can become slippery so there are practical issues that the humble bathmat addresses. Style wise though, we are moving away from minimalism and into the arms of a comfortable, maximal home. The majority of bathrooms still contain white suites and often white or at the very least light tiles. The space can be stark, bare and unwelcoming. A bathmat is a quick and easy way of adding colour, pattern, comfort and personality. Having held off for years, this Autumn I have succumbed.
Here then is my audit of the current top 9 high street bathmats out there:
Top Left: Weaver Green - Navy Provence Rug £45 (Made from recycled Plastic Bottles)
Middle Left: Next - Get Naked Bath Mat £16
Bottom Left: John Lewis Any Day - Turtles £15
Bottom Right: John Lewis - Mango Selby Faversham £22
Top: M&S - Ombre Non Slip Luxury Quick Dry £19.50