When did bathrooms become the accepted dumping ground for any piece of coastal-themed tat? As great swathes of London decamp for their long-weekends-on-sea, I have one plea: be careful with what you haul back.
Because we all know what makes a Great British holiday home. From Burnham Market to Lyme Regis, Deal, Newquay and Devon… it is the Great British nautical loo. Part of our culture, yes, but because your Whitstable Airbnb — its lavatory replete with anchor-print wallpaper, oil-painted waves, a lifebuoy ring affixed adjacent to the sink — seems charming, these seaside flourishes have no place in actual homes.
Post-crab night in Salcombe and St Ives, expect countless shops to try and sell you these objects and more. Be a grown-up. In the same way wine tastes better on holiday, interior decor looks much better, too.
What, I hear you wail, must you avoid putting in your water closet? Think porthole mirrors and driftwood statues, thick sailing rope that has been wired-up and crafted into a lamp and oars repurposed into towel rails.
Sandblasted seagull statues stuck onto rusted iron sticks London Bridge decapitation-style are bland
The sandblasted seagull statues stuck onto rusted iron sticks London Bridge decapitation-style are bland and big glass jars filled with rocks, sand, shells, or those clear and blue glass pebbles (cue involuntary wince) serve no purpose except to offend.
Tongue-in-cheek signs (“The bathroom hut!”, “bikinis optional!”) are cringeworthy, and transparent toilet seats with fake fish in them are simply alarming. Needless to say, conch shells on window sills are painfully overdone as well.
I am not (today, anyway) dictating that all souvenirs should be banned. Just collating them in one place for guests to face-off with alone is cruel. There are rooms outside the bog! Before you buy a freeze-dried starfish and nail it above the tooth-brush stand, for example, consider hunting for fabulous rocks, and arranging them in your bedroom.
This is in the style of Jim Ede, creator of the elegant home-cum-art-gallery Kettle’s Yard, in Cambridge; his bedroom features the 1958-made Spiral of Stones complete with 76 limestone pebbles he collected on the beaches of Norfolk, and laid carefully on a wooden table. Chic! Though I’ll admit it helps they sit opposite a Joan Miró.
As for shells, swap conches for scallops. Rather than painting them coral and plonking a bar of soap on them, however, why not find six, keep them in the kitchen cupboard, and serve up seafood for starters on them at your next dinner party.
Anyone who now finds their bathroom mood board empty, Gergei Erdei, the London-based artist, designer and tastemaker, helpfully suggests looking up “classic old Milanese and Parisienne bathrooms of buildings from the Thirties. Go marble on marble, and if you can’t afford real, Marazzi does great printed porcelain panels”. This is more the ticket.
“I like a sexy bathroom — seashells and seagulls are not really giving that to me anymore,” he told me. I assured him, he is not the only one.
