Bedding

At the bare minimum you need to dress your bed with sheets. Standard sheet sets include a fitted sheet, a flat sheet, and two standard or king-sized pillowcases. Bedding designers, from Martha Stewart to IKEA, also provide full bed-in-a-bag bedding sets. The bed-in-a-bag generally includes a sheet set, matching comforter or duvet cover, bed skirt, and pillow shams. With the bed-in-a-bag, your bed linen shopping trip can be over in one fell swoop.

If you fancy doing the bit-by-bit thing though here’s what you need:

Choose your bed cover

The comforter, bedspread, quilt, or duvet cover you choose for your bed will likely become the focal point of your bedroom décor. Good quality bedspreads and comforters are made with matelasse, cotton chintz, chenille, or even velvet. These fabrics tend to have a tight weave and thick threads that increase the durability and opulence of the cover.

A duvet cover, which can be used to give new life to an old and faded comforter, is like a big pillowcase for your comforter. Secured at the top with ties, Velcro, or button closures, duvet covers are easy to remove and launder.

Buy extra blankets

Blankets can add an extra layer of warmth and style to your bedding set. For the cold winter months, place a fleece blanket, cotton blanket, chenille blanket, down blanket, or vellux blanket between your sheets. Or, spice things up in the bedroom by throwing a cashmere blanket or afghan across your bed and raise your style quotient any time of year.

Add pizzazz with pillows

Pile pillows on your bed and cover them with decorative pillow shams and complementary pillowcases to create interest. Add additional standard-size pillows, king-size pillows, 26" square Euro pillows, decorative pillows, and accent pillows, such as bolsters or neck roll pillows, to instantly make your bed and bedroom look more luxurious and inviting. You can stick with a bedding color scheme while mixing different fabrics and textures or introduce a new color or pattern. Stripes, polka dots, and florals can all help you achieve a cohesive look. You can, of course, just use plain white.

Hide your box spring

Bed skirts or dust ruffles hide a bed’s box spring and can bring another degree of color and texture to your bedding set. To get the right fit, know your mattress length, width, and drop measurement. The drop measurement, distance from the floor to the top of the box spring, determines the length of the skirt. A standard drop measurement is about 15 inches.

Look for bed skirts with higher thread counts that will better conceal your box springs. Bed skirts come in both gathered and box, or tailored styles and have two basic designs. One design places the bed skirt between the mattress and box spring and the other design uses snap strips or hook and loop fasteners (Velcro).

Now that you know all this just click and shop.

© Buy Beds.org.uk 2006.

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