Bed Making Skills – Where Did You Learn Yours?
How do your bed making skills measure up?
- Yeah, right. You’re funny!
- Not bad. I throw the comforter up over the rest of the mess.
- Pretty good. Not everything is tucked perfectly, but you can’t tell that under the bedspread.
- Excellent. Everything is smoothed, straight, and tucked nicely.
- Perfection. Hospital corners, quarters bounce, the works.
Depending on the day, I would say my answer would be somewhere in the pretty good to excellent range. Some days I take the time to plump the pillows, smooth the sheets, and make sure everything looks just so. Other days, it’s neat and tidy, but definitely not flawless. More like good enough.
Who taught you to make your bed?
I learned how to make the bed from my mom. First, watching her make her and my dad’s bed, and making my bed for me. Then, as I got a little bigger, she showed me how to make my own bed each morning, and eventually even how to change the bedclothes and fold clean sheets fresh from the laundry. (Those darn fitted sheets still make me feel like a folding failure.)
Mom did, and still does a good job making beds, and she taught me great bed making technique. She showed me how the fitted sheet slips snug around the corners of the mattress, and how to make sure the edges are all tucked neatly under. She demonstrated how to put the top sheet on with any pattern facing into the bed so when it’s folded over the top of the blanket, the pretty side shows, and when you turn the sheets down before getting in, you get to see the good side. She taught me the secrets of hospital corners and how to get everything looking smooth and crisp.
Not everyone learns their bed making skills from their family though. You may never have been taught at all and figured it out by yourself. Maybe you’ve just been winging it and simply push the sheets and covers under the mattress wherever they seem to fit. You can hide lumps and wrinkles under a quilt or bedspread, right?
Who says you have to make your bed like that?
Maybe you first learned how in Girl or Boy Scouts (been there, got the patch or badge). You may have been trained certain techniques while working in a hotel, motel, or hospital. If you’ve been in the military, you will have learned a very specific and mandated technique. (Yikes!)
Or did you see it done properly for the first time watching TV moms in black and white reruns? They were always doing things like making beds and washing dishes. Or possibly more recently on HGTV? You can learn a lot watching them as they stage homes.
In today’s world, you can learn how to do almost anything by reading articles or watching videos online. Making a proper bed is no exception.
Looking back at my October 2018 blog post, You’ve Made Your Bed, Now…Don’t Mess It Up!, I noted:
“Right now, for whatever reason, I am in
happy, every day bed-making mode. I hope it lasts!”
Just recently, as I was making the bed one morning, I realized that I’ve missed maybe one day in those last three years. That has got to be a lifetime record for me, and I won’t deny it…I’m kind of impressed with myself.
How do I know I’ve been that good for that long? Because my bed making streak started about the time I got my house back in order after a disconcerting break-in where my bedroom was the main target. I never want my bedroom to look or feel that chaotic again, and somehow, not leaving my room in the morning until the bed is made is part of that.
And – if I’m being perfectly honest – after the break-in I got a home security system with motion detectors, and I’ve had a couple of false alarms in the master bedroom. Note to self – don’t hang clothes to air dry in doorways if they might fall off their hangers when you’re not home and trigger the alarm causing you to go running home to meet the police who then go through your entire house looking for criminals and seeing your unmade bed and dirty laundry on the floor.
Too much information?
Or can you relate?
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