What We've Been Up To: December 2010

Ok, so I know that I've probably mentioned my bed before, but let me again say: I have the best bed ever. It's a queen sized captain's bed with a bookcase headboard. You can get one from The Bean Bag Store: http://www.thebeanbagstore.com/bhdillonqncaptain.htm. I bought my mattress from Ikea. It's a Sultan Forestad; a foam mattress about 6 inches thick including a layer of memory foam on top. Super comfy :)

This is all old news, of course. The reason I'm posting is my latest update which makes my already spiffy bed the ultimate in comfort and convenience *grin* I just found out about this genius idea called the duvet cover. Basically it's like a giant pillowcase for your comforter. You put your comforter inside, and then you wash the cover every week and only wash the comforter once a year or so. Cool beans. But wait, there's more...

I've always slept with a top sheet, at least one blanket, and a comforter. The problem is that I toss and turn, so I tended to have a problem with my sheet getting tangled up. The solution was to tuck it in at the bottom and all the way up one side. Then the sheet couldn't go anywhere to get tangled. But that did leave me feeling kind of... trapped. Plus my toes got squished.

Enter the European bed setup: You keep your bottom, fitted sheet. But you get rid of your top, flat sheet and you get rid of your blankets. Then you get a comforter or duvet and stuff it into your duvet cover. This means that you only have one cover to keep track of. You have no sheet to get tangled or kicked to the foot of the bed. If you get too hot, you can just stick a limb or two out from under the duvet in any direction :) Also, you can simply flip the whole duvet over and have the cool side towards your skin.

That's fine, you say, if getting too hot were a problem for me. But what about cold sleepers? No, no, I tend to feel cold at night too. They make these things called down comforters. I thought they were an expensive gimmick, but it turns out I was full of it. I just bought one from Overstock.com, and I'm very, very pleased with it :) It is way lighter than my old comforter and blankets, but it is super warm. I turned off my heater and let the house cool to 60˚ last night, and I was totally comfy with only the comforter :) I was warm, but not too warm. I've heard that down comforters tend to be cool in hot weather and warm in cold weather, so I'll have to wait till summer time to test the hot weather part...

Anyhow, when it's time to do laundry, you pull off your fitted sheet, your pillow cases, and your duvet cover. Go ahead and leave it inside out for washing, cause you'll need it that way to put it back on anyhow. After the linens are clean, you get to put the duvet cover back on. How to Put on a Duvet Cover? Check out this great video and this excellent blog post.

If only I'd known about this great combo while I was living in France. I couldn't figure out why the stores didn't have blankets! I didn't want to buy a down comforter, because I thought of them as very fancy... Too bad it took me 10 more years to figure it out!