Warm Underfoot: 10 Nordic Pieces for Cold Autumn Floors
October is when the floor goes cold first. Ten Nordic mats, rugs, a sheepskin and a pouf for the route from the front door to the sofa.
Read More →The Nordic Guest Room: 10 Pieces for Autumn Visitors
From the middle of October, people start staying the night. The drive home is in the dark and the rain, half term lands somewhere in the month, and the run-up to Christmas brings the relatives who come for two days and a walk. The spare room, shut since summer, gets opened and aired.
A good guest room is not a small hotel. It is a short list of things that answer the questions a visitor is too polite to ask: where do I hang this, is there water, how do I turn the light down, where do I put my bag. The ten pieces below cover those, from a single duvet cover to a basket big enough for a folded blanket. All of them are in stock in the UK, Germany, Norway and Denmark, and every one can be compared on price on ScandiDeals.
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1. Marimekko Unikko Duvet Cover – Poppies, Plum Ground
Maija Isola drew Unikko in 1964, and sixty years on it is still the fastest way to make a plain room look decided. This is the satin version at 150 by 210 centimetres, a single, which is what most spare beds are: chalk-pink poppies with olive-gold centres scattered across a deep plum ground. The Unikko cover does the decorating on its own, so the walls can stay white and the rest of the room can stay quiet.
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2. Elvang Stripes Cover – Camel, Chalk Pinstripe
A woven cover in camel with narrow chalk stripes, 40 by 60 centimetres, with the soft brushed surface of a blanket rather than the cool of cotton. The Stripes cover from the Danish house Elvang works at the head of the bed during the day and moves to the chair at night, which is the honest life of most cushions in a guest room. The colour sits well against the plum of the Unikko and against plain white linen.
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3. Klippan Gotland Wool Throw – Folded At The Foot
Spare rooms are the coldest rooms in the house. They sit over the garage, or at the end of the landing, and the radiator has been off since April. A wool throw at the foot of the bed solves that without anyone having to ask for another duvet. The Gotland throw is 130 by 200 centimetres of undyed grey wool with fringed ends, long enough to pull up to the shoulders. Klippan has been weaving wool in southern Sweden since 1879.
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4. Muuto Control Table Lamp – A Dimmer Within Reach
The thing a guest cannot do is find your light switch at two in the morning. Control puts everything on one flat white plate: an upright socket at one end, made for a clear globe bulb, and a round dimmer knob at the other, sitting where a hand lands in the dark. Turn it low and it is a nightlight; turn it up and it is enough to read by. On a small bedside table it takes less room than a shaded lamp.
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5. &Tradition Collect SC62 Carafe – Water Without Asking
Nobody wants to go downstairs in a strange house for a glass of water. A filled carafe on the bedside table says the room was made ready, and says it better than a note. The Collect SC62 holds 0.8 litres in clear glass turned with a fine spiral, so it catches the lamplight rather than disappearing. The neck is narrow enough to pour from without dripping and wide enough to fill at the tap.
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6. ERNST Metal Tray – Keys, Glasses, Phone
Eighteen by twenty-eight and a half centimetres of cream-painted metal with a cut-out handle at each end: small enough for a bedside table, deep enough that nothing rolls off. The ERNST tray gives a visitor somewhere to put the things that come out of pockets, which is the difference between a room that feels prepared and one that feels borrowed. It also carries a cup of tea up in the morning and goes back down with it.
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7. Mette Ditmer Morocco Guest Towels – Folded On The Bed
Two towels, 35 by 55 centimetres, woven in a chocolate and off-white diamond pattern with a plain band and a short fringe at each end. The Morocco guest towels come as a pair, which is the useful number: one each, left folded at the end of the bed so nobody has to work out which towel in the bathroom is theirs. The pattern hides the fact that a guest towel is used twice a year.
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8. Essem Design Triangel Hangers – Three, In The Wardrobe
The most common failure in a spare room is a wardrobe full of your own coats and one bent wire hanger. The Triangel hangers come three to a pack, bent from white steel rod in a slim triangle with a bar across the bottom for trousers. They weigh almost nothing and take up a centimetre of rail each, so they can live in the guest wardrobe permanently and still leave room for a dress that needs hanging out overnight.
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9. Muuto Framed Mirror – Dark Green, Soft Corners
A guest room with no mirror sends people to the bathroom to dress, which is awkward when there is one bathroom and four people. The Framed mirror is 59 by 44 centimetres, a rectangle with rounded corners and a slim dark green frame that reads almost black in low light. Put it on the wall by the wardrobe rather than opposite the bed, where a mirror is the last thing a person wants to meet at six in the morning.
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10. MUUBS Basket – Sixty Centimetres Of Floor Storage
Every guest arrives with a bag that has to go somewhere, and every spare bed needs a second blanket within reach. The Muubs basket answers both: a tall woven basket, 60 centimetres high, with a wooden rod across the top to lift it by. Fill it with a folded blanket and a spare pillow before anyone arrives, and it becomes the place the bag ends up after that.
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Final Thoughts
A spare room earns its keep about fifteen nights a year, which argues for buying almost nothing. It also argues for buying well, because the few things in there have to survive long stretches of doing nothing and then work perfectly for two days. Wool, glass, steel and woven fibre all do that. Printed cotton does it too, and a duvet cover that has been in production since 1964 will outlast the fashion for whatever the room is painted.
Start with the bed and the light. A cover you like, a throw for the cold hours before dawn, a lamp that dims from the pillow, and water already poured. The hangers, the towels, the tray and the basket are the small courtesies on top, and they are the ones guests remember. Prices for all ten move between the Nordic shops and across the four regions, so it is worth comparing them on ScandiDeals before the room gets its autumn tidy.
