Longer Life For Sheet Sets

When Mother Eco was a child, there was no such thing as fitted sheets, just flat sheets that were carefully tucked with hospital corners to make the bottom sheet smooth for sleeping. She tells me that in her house every Monday morning, the beds would be remade with clean sheets. But they didn’t wash all of the sheets - what they would do is take the top sheet and put it on the bottom and put on a new clean top sheet. The idea was that the top sheet did not get as dirty over the week as the bottom sheet would. This way the sheets wore evenly and it cut down on the amount of washing needed.

I’ve had fitted sheet sets all my life and of course the fitted sheet wears out much faster than the top flat sheet. I ended up with a cupboard full of top sheets and having to buy new sheet sets.

Now when I buy sheet sets, I wait until there is a good sale and I buy several sets of the same pattern or colour. (Of course, you can also just buy patterns or colours that compliment one another.) I make sure that I rotate at least 2 sets of complimenting sheets with one another at all times, so one set comes off and the other goes on. I also try to be diligent enough to rotate the direction of the bottom sheet when I put it on, so the same spots do not get constant wear. It’s pretty predictable that when the fitted sheet of one set starts being threadbare, the fitted sheet of the second set is pretty close behind.

Now that I only have 2 top sheets left from my two previous sets, I can still make a full set of sheets by tying a knot in each of the four corners of one sheet to make a fitted sheet and tucking it under the mattress.

(Make sure you undo the knot before washing.) Or you can always use the hospital corner method of tucking that my MIL used to use. Rotating which sheet gets put on the bottom also extends its life. 

My other option ia making use of my two orphaned flat sheets is to make one giant pillowcase that I can slip my quilts into. If you sew the two sheets together on three of the sides and part of the way on each side of the bottom, they won’t fall out of their case, but you can still get the quilt in and out of it.

As far as the fitted bottom sheets are concerned, if they are not completely worn through with holes, they are still good enough to use as extra mattress protection underneath your bottom sheet, or to use as protection on the back seat of the car, particularly if you take the dog with you. 

Our guest room is a library / office most of the time with a hideabed couch that pulls out when we have company. I keep it fully made up all the time and then cover the whole bed with an old fitted sheet to keep everything clean and tucked in when it’s folded back into a couch. Crumbs that may fall between the cushions of the couch on to the hideabed stay on top of the fitted sheet which we take off when we open up the bed so the bedding underneath stays nice and clean.

At the end of their life old sheets still make excellent drop cloths and when they are finally so worn that there are holes, they get cut up into 18” squares to use as rags.