Now that summer is right around the corner, many people will swap out their down comforter and duvet cover for a coverlet. What is a coverlet, you might ask? It is a short bedspread.
Here is a video that offers some insight into decorating your bed with a coverlet. For those of you at work that don’t want to let everyone know you’re watching a video, here is the written version.
The fact is many people do have air-conditioned homes so the room temperature of your house doesn’t vary too much between summer and winter, so keeping your duvet on the bed year round works just fine. As well, some people like the look of using a coverlet and having the down comforter and duvet cover rolled at the foot of the bed, this works fine as well. For those that want to not use the duvet in the summer, here you go.
Now the reason that coverlets are used rather than a bed spread (a cover that hangs to the floor) is that our friends, the mattress makers, have become a little overzealous with the thicknesses of mattresses. You will find mattresses as thin as 9” and as thick as 24” – so it is impossible for bedding manufacturers to accommodate all of the variations that exist. Therefore, coverlets are the answer. Now you can have a bedspread that goes to the floor made to fit your exact mattress size, but hold on to your wallet, you are likely going to spend over $1,500 for anything that looks good. Bedspreads were often more of a decorative piece and not that functional. A coverlet can be used as your blanket and top of the bed cover.
Back to coverlets!
They come in a few different construction styles:
- Quilted – which consists of (3) layers, the underside, the batting (middle) and a top layer. These pieces are then quilted together with varying stitch patterns, giving it a more decorative finish.
- Matelassé – (pronounced MAT-LA-ZAE) is a single layer of fabric, that is generally a little thinner that it’s quilted cousin.
When you purchase your coverlet, it may have some wrinkles in it, so the quick fix is put it on the bed and run an iron over it. If you’re lucky enough to have a steamer – this is a perfect way to get the wrinkles out.
- If you’re contemplating the purchase of a steamer – you may want to avoid the small hand held ones as most of them do not have enough horse power to do an effective job. A reasonably priced commercial grade steamer is Jiffy – you can find them on the web at www.jiffysteamer.com.
After you have placed your comforter on the bed, pull the edge that will be at the head of the bed all the way to the headboard. Then pull it back about 1/3 of the way down. Do the same with your flat sheet (if you have a decorative trim on your flat sheet, insure that you have placed it on the bed up side down so when it is folded back the embellishments can show.
Now add your shams, if you don’t have Euro shams, consider getting them as they add a nice, height and layered look to the bed. To see how we get the flanges to stand up on these, watch our blog post on floppy flanges.
Now add your sleeping pillows – stand them on edge.
If you want to put your duvet cover at the foot of the bed, simply place your duvet on the bed and fold it up, or roll it. If you decide you do not want to sleep with the duvet at night you can simply remove it and place it on a bench or chair that you might have in the room.
We hope this helps and as always, please feel free to contact us with your bedding-related questions.
Steve
For those that would prefer to read rather than watch a video, scroll down past this image to find our written version.
