Love Your Bed Linens, But Limit Them!

 We haven’t all grown up in homes where money was no object. On the contrary, most of us of retirement age were raised in mend-and-make-do households where, with the possible exception of the family car, nothing of value was ever discarded or traded-in in favour of a newer model. The result is almost all of us now live in a house bulging at the seams, and when it comes to down-sizing, our experience tells us we must hang onto all of our ‘stuff’ fiercely, or face the financial consequences! In our new ‘How Much is Enough?’ series, we go room-to-room to help you downsize – and trust us, we know how difficult this may be for some of you.

How Much Is Enough?

They’re bulky, worn, mismatched, and years after you first bought them, many of them are not beautiful. We’re talking bed linens, and the sheer amount of space they take up. If you’re having trouble closing the drawers or doors of your bedroom linen storage units, the very first question you need to ask yourself is: why do I have so many sheet and pillow case sets?

The reality is, especially as we move into smaller homes, we do not have infinite space for beds or bed linen! As only one set of bed linen can be accommodated on one bed at one time, just how many spare sets do we need to own? At this stage, your mind is probably going into overdrive with questions such as: “What if I have guests staying, hot on the heels of each other, and I can’t get the linen dry and aired in time for them?” Or “But why should I quit my surplus linen when I’ll only have to buy more when what I’ve kept wears through?” Or “What if the linen I have gets marked?” Then there’s the inevitable: “What if all the grandchildren decide to stay at once?” If this is you, you’re living in a past you don’t need to inhabit.

For starters, if you have a clothes drier, you are allowed to run it occasionally! And if you don’t have this appliance in your home, you will almost certainly have a friend who does, and on whom you can rely on to help you out in a tight situation. Not to mention the fact there’s bound to be a laundromat, with a drier, just down the road you can use at a pinch. As for your bed linen wearing out – welcome to the world of comfy cotton/synthetic mix fabrics that will see you through the next few decades. Besides which, when did you last own a pair of sheets that wore thin? As for marks, purchase some up-to-date stain treatment products (they take up less space than bed linen!). As for the grandchildren arriving en masse – hello? Since when didn’t a child prefer to overnight in a sleeping bag (in which case, they can bring their own).

This leaves you with the delightfully minimalist option of retaining just two sets of bed linen for each bed (and an extra set for the sofa or fold-out bed if you have one). So, choose from what you have, or head to the sales to stock up on some treaty new sheets and pillow cases. Keep one set on each bed (if they’re not regularly in use, switch on the electric blanket once a week, or pull back the covers, to keep them aired). Store the spare set in the room where they are to be used, along with matching towels (note: mark on the linen tags which room the items belong to –  this will make it easy when it comes to putting them away after laundering). While you’re at it, biff out any bed pillows past their use-by date, and purchase (bit by bit, as you can afford to) some quality replacements that will show off your new pillow cases to perfection.

You don’t have to live in the past, and you certainly don’t have to live with linen that is seldom used, and storage that is overflowing! Enjoy making the switch to ‘less is best!’