How to Choose the Right Doormat?
What are the basics of buying a doormat?
The primary reason people buy a doormat is to remove dirt and moisture from your shoes so that it doesn’t enter your house. A secondary reason is that a well made doormat also provides a nice aesthetic touch to your entrance, giving your home a nice finishing touch.
A quality mat is a worthwhile investment as it protects both the exterior and therefore the interior of the home from dirt and reduces the amount of time you have to spend cleaning the house. Ideally you would want to have two mats for each entrance. The exterior mat would be some sort of scraper mat like a Coir Doormat to remove the majority of the dirt and debris from your shoes. A scraper mat also doesn’t need to be plain and ugly. We offer a wide selection of styles and that includes personalised options as well.
Now your mat on the inside of the door would be an absorbent mat, such as a carpet mat, which will take the remaining amount of moisture out of your shoes and is easily to clean afterwards.
You can either have one outside the door and one inside, or put both inside. If you can only purchase one mat then choose moir as it has an excellent scraping action and is still absorbent but less so than a washable mat.
Size Matters
Choose the mat that will best fit your space. If the mat you have is to small for the space that its in people won’t properly step on it when entering! A larger mat that is big enough to stand on when taking off your shoes can be the subtle reminder your guests need to wipe and take their shoes off when entering your house.
You can turn your mat and keep it landscape or portrait depending on how wide or narrow your doorway is to best optimise getting people to have both feet on the mat everytime they come and leave the house.
Many people also opt to have custom size coir matting to best fill the space since every home layout is different.
Thickness
More mat or a thicker pile is not always the best option. Shorter pile mats tend to have a stiffer fibre and prove to be better at scraping away dirt effectively.
For outdoor use a handwoven coir mat with an open backing would be much better in the elements to allow moisture to come out than a PVC backed mat which would have trouble draining out moisture. Both a PVC backed mat or printed designs outside will have a much short lifespan than if they were used for indoor use.
Our Recommendations
Outdoor:
For an outdoor mat you want a scraper mat that is short pile and can wipe away the majority of dirt and moisture while being able to handle the elements. We would suggest one of these:
Indoor:
For your indoor options you you want something that will absorb the remaining moisture but will also be an aesthetic piece in your home. For those our suggestions would include:
All of the mats are fine for use indoors, but if you follow the tips above to have 2 mats in each entrance as a scraper mat and an indoor absorbent mat, you will save time having the cleanest floor.
