A question for my Brit friends:

[xiphias]

Lis is reading a book about the history of various rooms in the house, written by a British author. And she keeps saying things about modern living that sound so completely alien.

First: do British houses lack closets? Are closets basically an American thing?

Second, and more weirdly: this author appears to claim that everybody stopped using top sheets after the introduction of the duvet. If we're interpreting it correctly, she seems to claim that a bed goes, from bottom to top, mattress, fitted sheet, duvet, and that's it. No blankets, no top sheet.

Now, our beds in this house go mattress, mattress pad, fitted sheet, top sheet, from zero to two blankets depending on season, then a top layer which could be a bedspread, a comforter, or a duvet. In cases where the nighttime temperature is likely to be unpredictable, an extra blanket, afghan, or something like that may be folded up on the foot of the bed. You can kick it off, or leave it as an extra layer (well, two layers since it's folded) over your feet, or pull it up as an extra blanket.

The "just a duvet" thing seems unsanitary. Am I reading it wrong?

Comments

[jenett]

I do

- mattress
- wool mattress pad (best thing ever)
- fitted sheet
- duvet with cover over it.
- periodic cat for additional foot warmth. Also body pillows.

The cover comes off and gets washed, like the fitted sheet and pillow cases. But I don't use a separate sheet. (They seem too much work for me: they get tangled, they are not sufficient protection against the cat playing attack the feet in the night anyway, and so on.)

Wikipedia mentions the cover part in the first part of the description.

(I grew up like this, mostly: my parents had actual blankets on their beds and sheets, on and off, but I've pretty much always had just the duvet + cover + fitted sheet combo, and that's what my mother uses now too.)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I'd have thought that removing and replacing the duvet cover is way, way more work than a top sheet. I found doing so to be a nightmare. Does it get easier with practice?

[jenett]

Well, I wash and replace the duvet cover every month or two, depending.

(I do not have a washing machine at home, so I only haul laundry every 2 weeks or so: even if I used a top sheet, I would probably not wash my sheets more often. But since I generally go from bath to sitting on the couch to bed, the amount of actual dirt involved in the process most of the time is fairly minimal.)

It does get easier with practice: mine comes from Land's End, which puts useful little ribbon ties in the corners of the cover, so it's just a matter of finding the bottom corners and tieing them in, and then shaking it out.