Nothing Says "Welcome" Like a Good Cheap Doormat

For a welcoming exterior, nothing does it like a doormat. It eases the transition between indoors and outdoors, giving your guests a sense of your personal taste before they’ve even rung the bell.

Over the weekend I saw the most beautiful welcome mat — a hand-hooked masterpiece in a stained-glass design, done in rich earth-tone colours. Instead of the traditional wool strips hooked and looped through the canvas backing, the homeowner used strips of weather-tolerant synthetic fabrics cut from secondhand clothing. So sorry I didn’t have my camera with me…

There are a lot of interesting and amusing welcome mats on the market, and some of the high-end mats are real works of art.

Truth is, however, doormats can take a beating from the feet (and they can sometimes disappear on a Saturday night, depending on where you live!) — that’s why I’m a fan of the inexpensive, easy-to-clean, and long-wearing welcome mat, like these recycled rubber doormats from Target.

Or maybe a tough coir mat, also very affordable, which you can paint or stencil for a one-of-a-kind front door area? For a natural fiber, they do last a lot longer than you might think. I was given a lovely coir mat in aCeltic knot pattern about 10 years ago, and have always kept it outside on the doorstep in summer, inside the mudroom in winter. And it’s only now starting to show how many boots have trodden it over a decade, and how much the cats love digging in their claws to have a good stretch!