I always have half a dozen bath mats on the go at any one time. I buy them in bright colours, cheaply from large stores or charity shops, or re-deploy ones from the bathroom that have become a little threadbare. They move around the house wherever they are needed.
The great things about bath mats are:
that they are easily washable
highly absorbent
designed not to slip easily as they are for use in wet places
they are available in lots of colours to co-ordinate with any room should these things worry you
Naturally I always have several in the bathroom as the boys consider bath time not so much as a hygiene intervention as a bailing excercise.
I always have one by the back door for the absorbing of wet, muddy hooves
I often have one inside the front door and occasionally one or two along the hall if the weather is particularly wet, snowy or muddy
I frequently employ bath mats in the kitchen. I am a very messy cook and I splosh left, right and centre.
If I’ve spilt something and mopped it up, I always pop a bath mat down to prevent a skiddy floor.
Likewise by the sink as my cold tap could double as a pressure hose and I always splash water on the floor.
If I’ve mopped the floor in the day, I scatter a few around to stop slippage and prevent dirty footprints
Assorted, fluffy, brightly coloured ones look great scattered on a children’s bedroom floor
Inexplicably there is always a dirty mark outside the bathroom door. So I put a mat there as well
What a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that? Thanks.
LOL at the “bailing exercise” and “muddy hooves”. So, so true!
I have a non-slip rug in each bathroom plus a bathmat but I can see the positives to having multiple bathmats in the boys’ bathroom. The kitchen–what a brilliant idea! The area in front of my sink is always drippy and it would be perfect. It would also cover some of the peeling linoleum in my rental house. Thanks for the idea.
Oh, I have none at all! Does that mean that I am lacking in the housewifery department?
You make me feel positively primitive! All I have hitherto insisted upon is that a large disposable paper doily is placed before the kitchen range, that the tin bath is warmed by Cook’s buttocks before it is filled and that when I am brought into the room the Scullery Maids must curtsy and leave.
I have sent someone out with a cold Florin to procure some gaily coloured “Bath Mats” from the village, ready for the Spring ritual (not long now). No-one, but no-one can truthfully intimate that Owl Towers does not move with the times, whatever the cost.
Owl Wood- I am amused by Cook’s buttocks’ extramural uses. I had never thought to thus use her, and actually think it just a trifle unsavoury, but I assume she is fully dressed for this operation?
WH- it sounds as though you actually have several dozen bathmats, and I wonder whether this is becoming a problematic behaviour? Do you find it difficult to pass a bath-related emporium without making a spontaneous purchase? I believe that aversion therapy works very well in this field. I am not quite sure how you might be averted however. Perhaps a new hobby would help.
Joy: Indeed a bathmat covers a multitude of sins, like the gap in the lino in my bathroom. A new lavatory was put in but was just half an inch smaller than the old one, leaving a small but unsightly gap, too small to necessitate new lino, but big enough to look shabby.
Toffeeapple: No, you are not lacking, you’re just clean. How I envy you!
Owl Wood: Do the Cook’s buttocks also warm the seat of the privy or does The Boy do that?
Fishwife: I own four peripatetic bath mats at present, which are deployed where and when necessary. However, I have just discovered a new range of kitchen and bathroom accessories in the Argos catalogue that come in very gay colours, so I’m going to have some red and purple ones in the kitchen and purple and sea green ones in the bathroom, along with some matching towels. I love purple and when I am an old woman, I shall wear it with a red hat that does go and will definitely suit me.
When these new mats are purchased, the old ones will go on the rota for doormat duty. I really don’t have a problem – I just seem to have acquired bathmats over time. Actually, I did buy two which I was going to cut up to make a prototype for something but I liked the colour so much I kept them. I could give them up any time I like, I just – er – I’ve just got a cold at the moment.
WH – I am intrigued, for what on earth were two bathmats destined to (or not as it happened) become prototypes?
I find I own a red bathmat, odd, as our bathrooms are decorated in shades of blues and greens, so it was enroute to Oxfam.
Now it has been reprieved as hound 1 has always hated sitting on the cold tiled kitchen floor and at Christmas he pulled an Amazon jiffy bag down off of the bookcase and plonked his delicate posterier on it whilst he watched the dinner preparations.
So as he will be nine in March what better present solution for the prevention of piles in a beagle one red bathmat relocated ! Well done WH, your subsidiary help group for beagle owners anon. comes up with the goods again.
Now what do I do about hound4 who has taken up geocaching and now requires his own GPS ?
Flat Stanley: I had an idea for something which required thick absorbent towelling which I would have needed to cut up and then re-stitch. I may still do it as the need still exists….
So glad to have assistented in the contentment of a beagle. But what is geocaching?
Welcome Judith – I only thought of it a few months ago myself, when I found that the boys were treading mud in through every door and I needed some absorbent that I could wash. Hope you keep reading.
Versatile items indeed … my aged ma-in-law has her water tank lagged with one!
Might lag myself with bath mats if this weather continues. (On the other hand I could ask the Cook…).
WH. – Geocaching is possibily a way to combine technology and fresh air for your boys.
Treasure hunting is the basic explaination, people put things in nooks and crannies and hidey holes and give gps location thingys and clues and other people go off to find them.
You note time and date found, in notebook usually left with item and replace for next person to come along. Now any experts out there I apologise for my understanding of how it works but I had only heard about it and never actually participated but hound 4 has, he found the object – in this case a cuddly furry spider ! He would not then relinquish it and I had to explore the ‘web’ (sorry) to find out who had put it there and would they like it back so game could continue. Fortunately kindly soul who had placed item very generously donated said toy to hound. Hound who is so chuffed at having a toy all of his own that he found by himself !
Now every visitor gets brought spidey upon entry to house – one very proud little pup.
I think website is http://www.geocaching.com
WH – Finally picked up my copies of ‘Just my Type’ & ‘The West End Front’, now dilemma is which do I read first ?
Just as well I also stopped by Hotel Chocolat and bought Eton Mess and chocolate & gin & chocolate ! Food for thought.
While on the subject of things left for others to find out in the countryside, I wonder if anyone else has noticed something that is puzzling me. Near here I have seen at least four examples of this- large seashells attached to tree trunks at about head height. Because I see them from my car, they are obviously all near the roadside, but there may be others off the beaten track. I have googled and found nothing, so I think it must be local to here, but it is a very odd thing to do. The ones I have seen are not particularly close together, and on different types of roads. No prize for best answer I’m afraid other than the satisfaction of knowing that I will be able to sleep at night in the future!
Flat Stanley: That sounds brilliant! What a creative and fun use of technology.
Fishwife: Gosh, how intriguing. I wonder if it’s a route marker for a party or even? Or possibly clues in a geocaching game like wot Flat Stanley was telling us about. Anyone shed any light on this?
Phil: Back in the eighties I would probably have made myself a frock out of them. Or some chaps…
OMG! What a great idea, in the past i have brought actual door mats that are expensive and you can’t put them in the wasing machine when dirty – I am going online right now to buy bathmats, bathmats, bathmats – thank you!
Nice to hear from you again Michelle – glad to be of service!