How a Minimalist Makes Her Bed
Executive summary: In my search for an aesthetically pleasing but minimalist “bedscape,” I’ve tried various configurations of bedding over the years, always striving to find a smart, simple, and stylish solution with staying power.
The pillow pile-up. The blanket behemoth. The wabi-sabi wonder. Yes, I just made up those names to enumerate a few ways to style a bed, none of which are my personal preference. I never understood beds that are piled so high with decorative pillows that there is nowhere to actually lie down. Nor beds that have so many layers of sheets and comforters and throw blankets that you’d inevitably wake up tangled in a mountain of linens, groping to find your way out. On the other end of the spectrum, I don’t relish the idea of sleeping on a pallet wrapped in a cloak, like a hard-suffering adventurer in some medieval-esque fantasy novel. My preference lies between the extravagant and the monastic, an optimization of aesthetics (which, yes, depends on personal taste) and simplicity (both in the quantity of pillows/sheets/blankets and the ease of making the bed every morning). I have gone through various configurations of bedding over the years, and embarked on my latest experiment last month.
Let’s tackle sheets and blankets first; I’ll get to pillows farther down. Growing up, my family opted for the “European” style of stuffing comforters into duvet covers, the latter of which is periodically removed for laundering. I dislike the American flat sheet, which seems only to exist to bunch up or slide around all night, disrupting my beauty rest. But I’ve also come to dislike stuffing blankets into duvet covers and trying futilely to pull the innards back up when they inevitably slide lower into the duvet cover after a few nights. Those ties in the corners are not nearly enough to hold a queen comforter in place (although they seem to work ok for twin sized bedding, which my son has). Since leaving for college and becoming responsible for my own bedding, I’ve tried three setups to date, by chronological order:
Comforter inside duvet cover, as I was raised
Duvet cover serving as a flat sheet, with a large throw blanket on top
Bedspread serving as a thin blanket, with a small throw on top
My most recent bedscape experiment (no. 3), with a bedspread serving as a blanket. So far, this has been reasonably comfortable, aesthetically-pleasing, and quick to straighten up in the morning.
I stuck with the comforter-inside-duvet cover setup for over a decade, as it was what I was used to. The bed was fast enough to make on a daily basis, but I was not thrilled with removing and then re-stuffing and tying the comforter back inside the duvet cover after every wash. But the final impetus for making a change was after my son was born, as I didn’t want to accidentally suffocate him with a fluffy blanket in case he ever ended up in our bed on an exhausting night (they really strike fear into new parents’ hearts with all that SIDS messaging). I decided to part with the comforter but keep the duvet cover. It would function as a double-layered top sheet, keeping us from sweating and drooling all over the less-easily-washed throw blanket I added on top for warmth. With its heavier weight, the duvet cover was a reasonable flat sheet, as it wouldn’t bunch up or get tangled overnight. But my husband and I would still have tug-of-wars adjusting the duvet cover and throw blanket throughout the night as they slid around. I also got tired of the time it took to make the bed: even though it took under 3 minutes (I timed it), the duvet cover and throw blanket had to be tweaked to lie just so, and if I could save 1 minute every morning on making the bed, I’d have 6 extra hours of free time in a year! As a harried parent, I would luxuriate in 6 extra hours. Let me cash that in on December 31, cha-ching!
Left: Experiment no. 1 (2006-2019) – Comforter inside duvet cover.
Right: Experiment no. 2 (2019-2024) – Duvet cover acting as a flat sheet, with large throw blanket on top.
Recently, I began to wonder if it was time to try a new configuration. My MIL has a bedspread that looks crisp and low maintenance, so I asked her about it. It turns out she sleeps with a flat sheet, a thin blanket, and finally the bedspread on top (oh, the horror of so many layers!), but I wondered if I could just sleep directly under the bedspread. It has a quilted quality to it, so it can function as a blanket, plus it’s easily machine-washable so we can sweat and drool on it to our hearts’ content. She has an inexpensive one from Amazon ($35 for a queen size), so I followed suit to give it a try. So far, so good. My husband says the bedspread is a little “stiff,” but we both agree that it’s comfortable enough. I lay out a small throw blanket on top to add extra warmth, and I spend minimal time overnight chasing either blanket around. My favorite improvement, though, is how quick it is to make the bed in the morning. That same “stiff” quality makes the bedspread a cinch to tug straight, and then I just artfully toss the small throw blanket on top and fluff the pillows, all in under 2 minutes. You’ll find me enjoying my 6 extra hours reading a book and sipping (spiked?) hot chocolate on December 31, thank you.
A note on climate: we do live in California, so I can’t say that this would be the right setup for more extreme temperatures. We keep our thermostat to 69 in the winter and 74 in the summer (although I’ve been known to stretch to 65 in the winter and 80 in the summer, much to my husband’s discomfort).
Now, let me discuss pillows for a moment. You see in all the pictures over the years that we have 4-5 pillows on our bed. My husband and I each sleep with 2, and then I add a single decorative pillow. I’m not a fan of throwing a million pillows on the bed only to remove them every night. I used to not have even a single decorative pillow (as the old picture on the left shows above), but it does wonders to cover up the more wrinkled and unsightly corners of our sleeping pillows so that they don’t have to be perfect. Plus, I do use that decorative pillow on my chair at night when I’m doing baby’s bedtime routine, so I have a use for it all throughout the day. The pillow has earned its keep.
So there you have it: a smart, simple, stylish bedscape that is the result of my experimentation over the years. Truth be told, I wasn’t looking to make any changes, but I literally woke up one day in January and said “I wonder how I could further simplify our bed.” That is apparently what my brain brews in the background while I’m asleep, and that is fine by me!