Ivy says:
My husband usually does the laundry in my household. However, that wasn’t working out for us, and since he had surgery last month, I’ve been taking over the laundry responsibilities. I’ve learned many amusing things while doing the laundry, but the overwhelming thing I have learned is just the fact that we have too much clothing, too many towels, too many sheet sets.
I was talking to Heather about this in IM this morning. I was telling her that I needed to clean my linen closet out so I could start storing towels in there. Previously I had been storing blankets, tablecloths, and sheet sets in there, but with the overabundance of sheet sets
I have unearthed since the Great Laundry Rescue of 2007, I need to make space for them in the linen closet.
Heather said all you really need is 2 sheet sets per bed. I probably *do* only have 2 sheet sets per bed, but with 4 beds in the house, that still takes up some space in my linen closet. Heather then said something that, to me, is such complete genius I knew I had to share it with you guys:
Store the extra sheets under the mattress.
Seriously, I would have never thought of that in a million, billion years. And it makes so much sense, why take up space in the linen closet when you can just put the sheets under the mattress? Not only that, but for those middle of the night, “I wet my bed” incidents, you can just reach under the mattress for a full, clean set of sheets, ready to go, no digging through the linen closet.
Genius, I tell ya. Genius.
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I dunno, I have ‘princess and the pea” syndrome and I’d be afraid the sheets would make a subtle lump, which wouldn’t be noticed at first but would gradually hurt my back over time… but my back’s messed up to begin with. 😛 Clearly it hasn’t given Heather that problem…
Err don’t roll them into logs. Large flat rectangles will do. 😉
Heather’s so smart. What would we do without her? 🙂
I worked in a large household retail store. we had to take classes to learn abotu sheets, towels, fiber, thread counts etc. they always told us you need 3 sheets for each bed. One for the closet, one on the bed and one in the laundry.
You are not supposed to put sheets fromt he laundry onto you r bed because it is too much for the fibers and the sheets wear out faster.
I am not sure if it is true, but that is what we learned.
WOW THAT IS GENIUS!!!! My most favorite tip yet from Home Ec 101!! We live in a space-challenged house and I really begrudge the sheet space in my cedar chest (see, I don’t even have a linen closet!). I do have 4 sets for my bed, though: 2 regular, 2 flannel. In Northeast winters and the cool bedroom I like, flannel sheets are a must.
I don’t really have a problem with sheets wearing out. One set from 8 years ago is getting a little thin, but that has made it uber-soft too, so I’m reluctant to consign it to rags. I change sheets every week, too, and sometimes bleach the white sets.
I don’t think I could heave my matress up to get sheets under there. My matress is a “temper” foam/latex and is 12 ” thick and HEAVY. It’s hard to even get the sheets tucked under the edges of the bed, but good idea for those with less heaving to do when changing the sheets;)
The shoe suggestion and the especially the sheet idea was great. I will try both. I am the one who likes to save things for a rainy day..
ThatÂ’s really shrwed! Good to see the logic set out so well.