Bedding for the Home

A great bed includes many layers of bedding and these layers perform different tasks such as protecting your mattress, providing comfort, and keeping your bed as healthy as possible. No matter how little you sleep, you likely spend a fair amount of time in your bed and a good night's sleep is so important. Make sure you do all you can to keep that environment healthy and relaxing.
Photo used under Creative Commons from Dustin DeKoekkoek.

I'll admit that as I've aged (and as my income has grown) my bedding layers have increased but they didn't start out that way. When I was younger and first out on my own (otherwise known as broke), I was lucky if I had one bottom sheet, a top sheet and a comforter and those either came with me from my parents' home or were hand-me-downs from friends and family. Now, I've moved it up a notch or two.

I'm going to skip mattresses and assume you've got that taken care of, but what goes on the mattress? Suggested layers include:

Bed Skirt: A bed skirt goes on top of the box spring and under the mattress. It covers that gap of space between your bed frame and the floor. A bed skirt is optional and does not work with all beds or bedding sets.

Mattress Protector: Ugh - you've surely heard about bed bugs and mites that invade our bedding. They are invisible to the naked eye and can be bothersome for those with allergies. Frequent washing of your bedding can help eliminate these irritants. A mattress protector helps keep your mattress cleaner, protect from stains, and reduce the risk of mites. These mattress covers can be easily washed and should be washed often.

Bottom Sheet: This sheet is often fitted at the corners and wraps around the edges of your mattress and mattress cover. You sleep directly on this bottom sheet, hence the need for a good quality material that won't develop nubs or won't be easily snagged by your nails or jewelry.

Top Sheet: The top sheet covers you while you're sleeping and provides a layer of material between you and the upper most blankets and comforter. Sheets can be easily washed and the material should allow your skin to breath, should feel soft, not scratchy, and should be tucked in - at least at the bottom - in order to stay in place.

Blanket: This thickness of this layer - or its existence at all - is heavily dependent on the temperature in which you sleep or the season/weather of where you live. I live in the hot, dry desert of Phoenix. In the summer, this layer is often cast aside. I keep my bedroom as cold as I can afford to keep it with air conditioning, a ceiling fan and a room fan but when it's 100 degrees outside in the dead of night, even a thin blanket can add too much warmth.

Comforter: The comforter is the top layer of your bedding and may be a down comforter, a regular blanket, or a duvet which encases a regular blanket or comforter. There are more options for your home today than ever before - more choices for color, patterns, styles, and fabrics. The best invention yet for bedding, in my opinion, is the duvet cover, which allows you to cover up any blanket with an easily washable cover in a style of your choice.

Egyptian cotton, 1000 thread count sheets, luxury feel? What does thread count tell you about sheets and why should you care? I used to shop for sheets first by price and then by color. This might explain why I had several cute sheets that had developed pills, or small balls of fabric, on them and became extremely itchy and uncomfortable in a short period of time. I would constantly end up rotating the sheet around trying to find a spot not nubbed to death in order to make myself more comfortable.

I then moved to buying only based on thread count until I had a set of 900 thread count sheets for my guest bedroom that my mother-in-law eventually replaced because she said they were too stiff. I thought she was crazy...until I slept on them. She was right.

Most often, sheets are made from cotton but even the various types of cotton used in a sheet can be different. The construction process also matters.

You should understand the following terms in order to find the best sheets for your money:

Fibers: Cotton can be of different lengths and qualities based on the growing region. Egyptian cotton is known for having one of the longest staples, or lengths, of cotton fiber and, therefore, can be spun into longer, stronger material. Egyptian cotton sheets are widely regarded for their durability and longer life.

Construction: The cotton fibers can be used as single threads or multiple threads and this can effect the feel of the sheets. Single thread is best, if the thread is of sufficient length, as it doesn't require as many threads to get to a thread count number whereas multiple thread counts can actually make a sheet feel slightly heavier.

Thread Count: Thread counts tell you how many threads were used per square inch of fabric. While higher sounds better, that isn't necessarily the case. The quality of the thread and whether or not the thread was single count or multiple count can make a big difference. I was unaware, for example, that single threads used to create a 300 thread count sheet can actually have a better, softer feel than a 600 thread count sheet when two-ply thread was used. Again, making sure the sheet is of the best quality cotton is really where the difference lies.

Photo used under Creative Commons from Dennis Wong.

Kids need comfortable bedding, too. While they're bodies tend to be lighter and they don't create the kind of pilling in sheets that adults do, their skin can still be sensitive to rough, cheap sheets with lighter thread count. Children bedding for the home fashioned after movie characters tends to be made of some of the lowest quality fabrics. If your child is yearning for a character bedroom, use the blanket from a set but get them some quality sheets that match rather than using the sheets from a character set.

First and foremost, follow the instructions on any of the tags attached to your bedding. Certain comforters and duvets may require that they be only dry-cleaned. Your sheets should be washed at least once every two weeks in hot water to sanitize them. In the warmer months of the year, you may want to wash sheets weekly as we tend to sweat more and this can stain sheets, covers, and mattresses.

As the mother of boys, weekly washing when they're teenagers or for any child in sports who doesn't bathe before bedtime is not a bad thing.

Photo used under Creative Commons from zzpza.