I love the way the Ralph Lauren advertisements make the beds with tons of pillows, throws, shams, etc. but personally, I'm tired of putting it all on my bed every morning and remove it all at night.
I used to pull my bedspread up, fold the top sheet back over it a little and fluff the pillows. It really was easier. I'm thinking about decluttering my bed and getting rid of all the extras.
Anyone else feel this way?
I don't have all those extras right now, just one sheet, comforter, and one pillow. My ex bf's mom had all that stuff in the guest room when we stayed there and we could never get it to look as good as it did when we got there.
ugh, i loathe bed clutter!
it all looks so contrived and fussy to me.
and what's up with the time it takes to arrange it all every day? and the drama of laundering it all? and resources wasted to launder it all? and the resources wasted to manufacture it all?
i say no thanks to all that.
my bed is pared down to the essentials but i make sure they are the best i can find...we spend a third of our lives there after all.
basic and essential doesn't mean cheap mattress or polyester sheets to me.
ditch the excess and spend the extra time sleeping instead!
Sheets, a blanket, and a furry throw. Fake fur is great to hide cat fur. I make my bed every morning so I don't have cat toe-pickins in the sheets at night.
Re: pillows, I don't get the whole "dressing the bed" thing. I put shams that match our blanket on the full-size pillows, which we don't use, but the cats do (during the day). We use neck-size pillows, wrapped in standard pillowcases, which hide behind the shams.
Simple and easy to put together and looks neat and clean, even when it isn't.
ugh, cat fur.
we've got a bunch of short-haired shedders here and one long-haired handsome thing....i swear i could scrape the cat fur off the bed and make a whole new cat out of it. daily.
Also a minimalist. Sheets, an Indian bedspread, two pillows, two pillowcases.
I recently made two pillowcases from my grandmother's old linen tablecloth, which I had NEVER used. I figured she would want it used in some way. Trimmed pillowcases with my hand-tatted lace. Love the new cases; linen is so comfortable next to the skin.
My cats shed all over the bedspreads. I pull wads of cat hair out of the dryer filter every time I wash and dry one.
Count me in the minimalist camp as well: feather doona, bottom sheet and four pillows – two standard ones to sleep on, and two enormous European-size feather ones to sit up in bed with. I don't have a bedhead and I must say those big pillows have been absolutely terrific. (I don't wash the pillowcases on them that often, as they don't come in contact with my skin.)
I have cat fur and dog fur too. Ugh. Those wasteful sticky rollers are the only thing I've found that really gets it off the doona cover – washing only removes a percentage. Though I have a rubber brush now that I might try, I think. How does everyone else deal with it?
We just replaced a very past-its-prime waterbed with a fantastic new adjustable bed (2 XL twin to make a split king.) I am having a great deal of difficulty locating good quality bedding in XL twin size, which has sparked some pondering of what is truly essential when it comes to bedding. No real insights yet, but decorative and excess pillows are certainly out. Ironically, pillows are the only items that fit on the new bed, but I am done with the fussiness of it all. Some type of easily launder-able top covering is needed for the dog fur issue. Still searching for what works for us.
BTW, chacha1, I love the phrase "cat toe-pickins!" LOL
No extra pillows here - gist sheets, a thermal blanket, a quilt (handmade on a machine), and two pillows for sleeping. We have 2 cats, one long hair, one short and both prodigious shedders. The longhair gets horrific mats which she hates for me to cut out, but she won't let me comb/bruh her either. Gotta love them.....
No extra pillows here - just sheets, a thermal blanket, a quilt (handmade on a machine), and two pillows for sleeping. We have 2 cats, one long hair, one short and both prodigious shedders. The longhair gets horrific mats which she hates for me to cut out, but she won't let me comb/bruh her either. Gotta love them.....
Hmmm....guess I have bed clutter. I love the way lots of pillows look. I sleep with 3 feather pillows on my queen - one for my head and one to wrap around depending on which side I'm sleeping on. When I make the bed, I line up the 3 pillows along the headboard. I have two big pillows in shams and two little decorator pillows that sit in front of those. I make the bed every morning and then my cat rearranges the shams and decorator pillows into a kitty fort after I leave. I don't think it takes that long for me to make it. I have no idea how long it takes the cat to get it to her liking though. :)
2 pillows each, but usually he ends up with 3 and I sleep with one or 0.
Sheets, blanket, duvet. Nothing decorative.
We have one duvet with a washable cover, and with the other duvet (which is real feathers, very warm, and not easily washable) I put a thin cotton bedspread over it, so that's what gets washed.
No decorative pillows here, but I have noticed that friends and family who bought or made fancy pillows soon tire of shuffling them around nightly and they end up piled on the guestroom bed. So, when we stay it is always a minor crisis -- where to put them? On the only chair? on the only flat surface where you really would rather put the suitcase? On the floor (where you will inevitably trip on them in the middle of the night . . . ) They look good, but so impractical in real life!
Guess I'll be the odd one out. I have 8 pillows on my bed, 4 of which usually end up on the floor at night, but it makes a very comfy bed for watching tv or reading. They are all regular bed pillows though, nothing really decorative. Also great to give out if I have guests sleeping on the sofabed.
I don't ever tuck in my top sheet though. I just have the edges matched with the duvet and cover. Each morning I throw all the pillows on the floor, shake the top sheet and duvet out flat and throw the 8 pillows towards the headboard. Takes all of about 45 seconds.
The bedroom is the one room that I've got decluttered completely. It started with getting rid of the knick-knacks on the window sill. Then most of the content of the nightstands, later followed by the nightstands themselves.
Current situation is a completely empty room, painted off-white and with nice hardwood flooring, that contains our bed (boxspring without headboard and such) and an alarm clock. And a single small ceiling light.
Making the beds is a ten second job: fluff the pillows, straigten the duvet, done.
Never slept better.
I tried the "lots of pillows" thing once, after being swayed by bedspreads in various home décor stores. It lasted all of one week, I think, before I got sick and tired of it. The extra pillows never seemed to do anything besides get in the way.
Now we have: fitted sheet. Duvet in duvet cover. 2 pillows for sleeping, in pillow covers that vaguely match the sheet. 2 more pillows for sitting up in bed, in shams that match the duvet. Done.
The cat hair doesn't get too bad, because the cats prefer the black armchairs in the living room, where their mostly white hair will show that much more.
I was immediately reminded of the movie "Along Came Polly" with Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston, where his character spends like ten minutes every day making/un-making the bed with a LOT of decorative pillows. I don't remember much else of that movie, but that one scene where he repeatedly walks back and forth between the bed and a bench to put all those pillows there in order to finally go to bed was so ridiculous! If I remember correctly, they have fun later in the movie ripping all the pillows apart or even stabbing them. ;o)
I have two pillows and one large-sized duvet, and a wool blanket over it if I'm cold. I make my bed daily and just throw a pretty white bedspread over everything. I like the look, plus my morning zombie self doesn't want to do much work that doesn't result in fresh coffee :o)
When I finally (FINALLY) bought a new bed, I didn't know what to do with the 2" memory foam topper I'd had on the old one. Eventually I rolled it up tightly, placed it against the wall, and covered it with an on-sale tablecloth. Makes a great support for my back when I read in bed, and serves instead of a headboard.
Very easy to make the bed as the pillows just rest on top of the roll while I pull up sheets/comforter. Because it's heavy, it's a bit more of a pain to change the sheets, but by "a bit" I mean at most 2 minutes each time.
Works for me.
trillie....I remember that scene in 'Along Came Polly'! Ridiculous in real life, isn't it?
I think since my bedroom closet, drawers and furniture surfaces are completely decluttered, I will take it to the next level and declutter my bed.
Good bye shams and throw pillows!!
There are 4 pillows on my bed, all in shams that match the duvet cover. Two I use nightly to sleep on. The other two are for when I have guests--I really don't have any place to store them in my small apartment. They are also used to prop me up when I read in bed. The shams help keep the cat fur off the pillows that I sleep on--it is a minor hassle to put the shams on and take them off daily, but my allergies appreciate it.
The extra pillows go on a chair that's right beside the head of the bed--taking them off/putting them on takes about 10-15 seconds.
So there are pretty pillows on my bed, but they all serve a purpose and they don't take a lot of time out of my day. I look at those beds piled with 8 or 10 pillows and think that they look great, but I'd never be able to keep up with all that.
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