A few weeks back, I asked on The Simple Year Facebook Page how many linens we should keep for our beds. The overwhelming majority of you said two sets per bed, one for use and one in reserve. Although some suggested that if we had particularly nice, high thread count sheets, we keep those regardless of how many we had.
I know nothing about thread count. But according to Southern Living, “the perfect bed sheets are paramount to a restful night of sleep.” Um, yeah, okay Southern Living. *insert epic eye roll*
Southern Living says, “thread count is defined as the number of threads, horizontally and vertically, per square inch of a fabric.” Then they moved on to ply and my eyes glazed over. And then types of cotton and weave and…I quit reading. Because I really don’t care. But not before I noticed the picture of a mom and her young daughter reading a book in their luxurious sheets that ostensibly give them a restful night sleep. Because the mom cares about thread count, ply, weave and type of cotton. And whatever else came in slides 7 and 8.
Whatever.
Before I quit reading, I got a “Special Offer.” For two free preview issues of the magazine. NOT FALLING FOR IT, SOUTHERN LIVING. As if I need any more paper in my house.
I piled up all of the sheets, pillowcases, blankets, comforters, and quilts that we own on the dining room table. Let’s just say we had way more linens than we needed. And we’ve been sending some off to charitable organizations pretty regularly throughout the past year.
Not long ago, we inherited new mattresses and box springs from my parents when they downsized. Along with the beds came the linens and the bedding. I’m quite confident that these sheets are of the high thread count variety. So, I put them in the keep pile.
As part of inheriting my parents’ mattresses, we downsized from our former king size bed to a queen (which will be the topic of a future post). All of the king sized bedding went to the donate pile. The kids no longer sleep on twin beds, but we do still have a set of bunk beds. We’re trying to decide what to do with them, but in the mean time I kept one set of twin bedding in case we decide to put one of the twins in the room formerly known as Stephen’s pit to stage it as a 4th bedroom when we sell the house.
The kids chose their two favorite blankets (not bedding, but to snuggle with on the sofa or to take in the car on road trips) and we donated the rest. We still have one full set of bedding we inherited from my parents. It is a queen sized bed skirt, comforter and decorative pillows. Pretty sure my mom had them custom made and I’m not entirely sure what to do with them. We are using the other set on our bed for now. I say for now because it’s not really our style, but it works for the time being. (I’m not a frilly floral print kind of gal.) It’s way too busy of a pattern and too bold in colors for me.
Here is what we ended up donating to The Family Place:
This doesn’t include what we kept. This is four stacks, probably 8 feet tall in total, of stuff we don’t need. Oh. My. God. That is excess. Duvet covers, sheets, blankets, pillow cases, sleeping bags, comforters, quilts. Good grief, Charlie Brown. Ridonculous.
Go you!! That’s a whole lot of sheets you are giving away! Im glad you found a place to donate to.
GOOD! FOR! YOU!!!!
You inspire me to go thru my blankets and get rid of some. I will post some on line to sell and if they don’t sell I will give to the thrift store.
You inspire me to simplify my life. We don’t need all this stuff I have gotten rid of a lot over the last year but it feels great getting rid of things still.
So glad that you conquered your linen closet. Sheets and linens seem to multiply like rabbits! I keep our supplies down to a minimum. I keep three twin set sheets( counting the ones on the bed) since we have two twin beds, I keep only one full sheet set since we only have one and one each for the two queens. While it does mean that I need to keep up on the laundry, it is has yet to be an inconvenience. A few weeks ago when one of the kids was sick, we just made up the bed with extra blankets while the sheets were being washed. They were happy and it was only for a short time anyway. I LOVE not having to face a horrible cluttered linen closet! Hope you enjoy yours!
You are so brave! I have a hard time getting rid of bedding, because growing up a missionary kid in Africa, we only had 1 for each bed and it was almost the only thing which was our own and not shared. Let me run upstairs and tell you how many duvet covers we have for a single bed (you might call them twin beds).
Fourteen. 14. That’s only the ones belonging to the children. Somewhere I have a box of ones which used to be mine, which I either bought with my pocket money in my early teens, or sewed myself in my late teens. They don’t get used because they are mine – and faded and nobody would want them, but they mean a lot to me. So let’s not count them.
That brings us back to 14. They don’t all fit in the drawer. Three permanently live in my clean laundry pile in the utility room, although which 3 they are varies depending on what the kids chose for their bed. OK, so he comes the really embarrassing part: I only have 2 kids. Two. Dos. Deux. Zwei. Twee. Två. TWO.
We could use duvet covers for dens, and we’d still have spare. We could use them for curtains and instead of doors and we’d STILL have spare. I even have 2 identical Disney Princesses one (my husband bought them both) and 2 non-identical Disney Cars ones. We could buy a holiday home and keep half the sets there and we’d STILL have too many. We could buy an RV (if we ever win the lottery) and keep a third of our sets at home, a third in our summer house and a third in our RV and still we’d have plenty. Hmm. Maybe I have a problem. Is this to beginning of hoarding? I bet my husband would be thrilled if I decided to have a Simple Year of purging and no acquiring. I did sort through clothes yesterday and took a whole banana box full of jeans which will never fit me again to the charity shop this morning, so that’s a good start.
If I didn’t mind cutting up perfectly good sheets, I’d take a square of each and turn them into ONE duvet cover, but that would be wasteful. They’re not plain or with a small pattern, they’re all character ones, with 1 big picture on. Most of them were bought second-hand, as I could never afford new sheets, so they were not expensive but they do take up space.
We always thought we’d foster but that has not been possible due to health. We live in hope that family will visit from abroad. If they do, we will need bedding.
I’m not going to be able to follow your example anytime soon, am I?
good for you!
i had more sheets than i needed and then the hurricane in new york happened. most got sent to there for the folks who lost everything.
now i am down to 4 sets for my double bed, 3 cotton and one flannel one for winter.
I struggle with linens. How silly is that? I keep trying to downsize, but we still have far too many. I’ve even got a brand new set hat we bought over FIVE years ago that I can’t bring myself to open and use(because we have so many already) or give away(“They’re brand new and we spent money on them!”). Ugh. I am inspired to tackle them again, though. Maybe by the end of the week I’ll have it all figured out(I need to find all of the hidden blankets, as I never actually counted them as part of the linen-or really any-category.) Sadly, I know we’ll still have a bunch, as we have one each of a crib, twin, full, queen, and king-sized mattress.
Yikes.
Great job! Regarding the dust ruffle, etc. you aren’t sure what to do with because your Mom may have had it custom made – Have you asked your Mom if she cares what you do with them? Since she gave it to you it must not have a lot of meaning to her at this point in time. You might be able to let it go too especially if you aren’t going to use it.
I agree–ask your mom. We’ve inherited A LOT from my mother-in-law over the years (she thinks everything is an heirloom because someone in the family–or even a neighbor–owned it once), and whenever I want to let anything go, I send her an email and she usually is able to find another family member who wants it or she tells me it’s okay to donate it. It’s slightly awkward, but I get to purge and she gets to feel like her gifts aren’t being discarded unceremoniously.
Your dedication to simplifying your life is amazing and very inspiring!
Keep up the great work!
I am SO enjoying your journey. As a chronic purger, married to a chronic hoarder, I love watching you divest yourself of all the excess in your life. I usually have too little of anything.
Finally something I’m doing mostly right! We only have a couple sets of sheets, 3 blankets- two that each of my grandmas made for me in our alma mater’s colors– and one leopard print Snuggie. I just don’t buy linens! I trashed a sheet that had a couple holes in it because my toes managed to get caught in the tiny little holes every night and the holds just got bigger and bigger. Pitiful, really.
I bet it feels awesome! My 10-year old daughter is away at camp this week . . . I totally gutted her room of everything she had in it and am starting over . . . I won’t get rid of anything until she gets back, but only what should be in a bedroom will go back in the bedroom (she had 4 sets of sheets in her own closet!). Thanks for the inspiration 🙂
I just wanted to throw out one more idea for what to do with older linens, towels, etc that you don’t want anymore – give them to an animal shelter! They’re nearly always looking for this sort of thing.