To me, the busiest room isn’t always the kitchen but the downstairs powder room.
Between house guests, visiting play dates told to wash their hands before a snack and family members too lazy to head upstairs to their own “real” bathrooms, this one, always adjacent to the house’s entrance remains on heavy rotation 24-7. This is where we dart in to do a last minute checks on ourselves before we dash out into the real world or let it in.
It’s where- as guests in other powder rooms- we poke around a little to get a sense of who lives here when we don’t know our hostesses well enough to visit rooms other than the dining room.
What can these little alcoves tell us about the owners in the sliver of time between cocktail hour and dinner?
These puny spaces can pack an identity punch and I always wonder why so many choose to forgo the getting to know you opportunity and instead offer a Motel 6 style- albeit helpful - facade to the world instead?
I’m always let down by the inevitable basic waste basket and drab towel rack or window treatment.
I know the options are limited here but why not live a little and peel the protective cover off the family seal? Why not paint a color here you’d never dare in other rooms? Go ahead and hang things on the wall too quirky for your living room. (I have framed and hung illustrated postcards from every family vacation on my slanted little wall practically from floor to ceiling). Never found the right place for those ridiculously old fashioned velvet curtains your Aunt insisted you take? Well for Pete’s sake, here’s the place, right next to the modern white toilet. Everything should count here but nothing should be taken too seriously.
A friend of mine has covered her guest bathroom walls with a potpourri of prestigious awards, diplomas and photographs she and her husband have received over decades. I look forward to every party she throws in order to duck in and silently ponder another snapshot of their layered lives and I appreciate her offering it to me in this friendly, off handed way.
The other day I suddenly opened the cabinet our own guest powder room - just because it had been awhile- and was horrified that my husband had put a large bottle of saline solution on the main shelf, the kind you use to flush out stuffed noses when you’re close to suffocating. I immediately removed it. Yes, we had space for it here and none in our own bathroom but that wasn’t the point. This bathroom should not be about storage, it was about receiving. A bottle of Advil, some fancy hand cream someone had re-gifted to me, a lovely bar of soap and hand towels I made sure were pressed weekly. This was a place that said, come in, we will take care of you. But we are not a hospital.
My favorite place to park in the city has an employee bathroom I once had to use in an emergency. The men kindly showed me into a tiny space with peeling paint, battered black lockers and exposed water pipes. This is all they had as far as a break room and they were happy to share it with me, no apologies for its appearance.
A worn circular mirror someone had probably found on the street was hung above the sink. A hook on the door afforded me a place to hang my pocket book and outside the city waited.
Despite its bleak nature, its safe four walls afforded me a temporary haven- a way station- between where I had come from and where I was about to go and I was grateful. After all, isn’t that what hospitality is all about?