We recently had guests come in to town, and prior to their visit, I wanted to make sure that the hardly-used guest room was all fixed up and comfy for them. Clean sheets were put on the bed, a pretty picture was hung, fresh flowers were placed in a vase.
Only one problem remained. I hadn’t gotten around to putting our newly bought comforter inside the duvet cover.
I knew there was a trick to this type of linen execution, and after a quick YouTube instruction from the Belle of Bedding, Martha Stewart, I performed something short of a miracle and put our comforter into a duvet cover.
Since I’ve got this thing down now, I thought I’d share my new-found knowledge with you.
1. Lay your duvet cover on the bed, then line up the comforter to the cover.
2. Slide the corners of top end of the comforter in to the hole of the cover and meet up with top corners of cover. Tie the strings of the comforter and the cover together, if applicable.
3. Holding the two corners of the cover/comforter, pull up on the top edge of the duvet to allow the cover to fall down around the remainder of the comforter.
4. Make sure the side edges of the comforter are on the side edges of the duvet cover, and shimmy the cover down to the un-covered bottom edge of the comforter.
5. Match up the corners of the other end of the duvet to the comforter, and tie if applicable.
6. Shake the covered comforter out to make it nice and smooth.
7. Button up the toggles (buttons, loops, whatever you’ve got to work with).
8. Stand back and admire your work.
9. Realize that you’ve screwed up and got the short end of the comforter on the long end of the cover and have to start over.
10. Not wanting to begin the whole process again, crawl in to the cover to untie the ties and attempt to rotate the comforter while pinned inside the cover.
11. Crawl back out and realize your laziness only gave you more work.
12. Start back at step 1 with the right sides lined up.
13. Begin to curse under your breath and wipe your face, because you’re sweating now, you idiot.
14. Wish you had just ponied up the extra $10 and bought the Bed-In-a-Bag deal at Target instead of trying to repurpose this crappy old duvet cover that you don’t really care about any more.
15. Get all the sides and corners lined up, then try to shake out the comforter to make the #(!@* ^% thing smooth again.
16. Resist the urge to fling the whole project out of the second-story window when you realize that you bought a full/queen-sized comforter for what now looks like a king-sized duvet cover.
17. Button those stupid toggles back up again, chalking up that missing button halfway in the center to karmic retribution.
18. Figure that since this is the guest room, no one will give as much of a crap as you do.
19. Shove the loose edge of the cover that doesn’t contain any comforter down into the footboard and hope no one ever notices.
20. Place some ill-matched pillows on the bed.
21. Walk out of the room and head for the chilled wine in your refrigerator.
22. Put Martha Stewart on your shit list.
How about you? Have you tackled this beast and survived? I’d love to hear your tips!
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I’ll go ya one better, G – I use duvet covers on the futon that hulks in our front room. In theory, it is a GENIUS idea. A twin sized duvet cover is an almost perfect size match for a queen sized futon mattress. A duvet cover is cheaper than a futon cover, and can (in theory) easily be tossed into the washing machine when the dog is done depositing a week ‘s (or 3) worth of hair and dirt onto it (because this is where she spends 80% of her time…). The problem lies in shoving a ridiculously heavy futon mattress into a cotton envelope while lining up seams and NOT falling off of the futon frame (you cannot perform this operation on the floor because the floor is covered in dog hair. I have employed the ‘get into the cover while shoving the mattress in’ technique, but I have discovered that it is “easier” to fold the damn thing in half like a 40 Lb tortilla then shimmy the cover over it then try to open it up without catapulting myself over the coffee table. I do not wash the covers as often as I had planned :-/
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R, I shudder to think about putting that futon cover on. Based on my last experience, the next time that cover needs cleaning, I’m just going to toss the whole setup and buy a cheap-ass comforter from Target.