What Well-Dressed Beds Are Wearing: Divine Duvets
Jay Johnson Tuesday, March 12, 2013 at 9:00AM 
In our last post, you heard that Sheffield has completely redone and updated the six Unit DVDs for The Complete Course in Interior Design. There are hours and hours of visits with top interior designers - to learn their tips and secrets, of course - and a host of trips to antique dealers, furniture and accessory showrooms, and lots of surprises. One of our trips was to the luxury bedding experts at Casa del Bianco, and they told us some great ways to dress a bed. The duvet is key to a beautiful bed, but you can vary the way you style bedding with a duvet quite a bit. Here are just a few of the many bed dressing and linen quality tips we learned.
- It's preferable to keep bed linens white or off-white, with a border or embroidery adding a pop of color that coordinates with the bedroom decor. Look at the Lamu duvet and sham set from Serena and Lily in the top photo. The duvet and its coordinating sham add bold coral notes to the room. But note that there's only a hint of color at the edging of the coordinating pillow case and top sheet. That's because sheets require more frequent washings, usually once a week. A duvet is laundered much less frequently, and the duvet and shams are more apt to keep their colors vibrant and unfaded over time.
- There are a number of ways to display your duvet (hey, that rhymes!). As in the photo above, you can use the duvet as a traditional American bedspread and pull it up most of the way to the head of the bed. Go all the way for a look that hides the sheets but emphasizes bed pillows, shams, and throw pillows.
- You can be less "tidy" with your duvet placement for a more casual look, as in the loose half-way-up-the-bed folding of the Caroline duvet from Serena and Lily in this bedroom for two teenage girls. In the background, there's the more relaxed bunching (for beds without a headboard, the effect is neater, with the duvet folded down in half or in thirds and draping over the end of the bed, just below the mattress/box springs assembly). The bed in the foreground shows the duvet pulled up to the head of the bed, revealing one side of the duvet to full effect and presenting an alternative appearance. When a duvet is folded in halves or thirds, however, you can also get a crisp look by neat folds - in the photo above, the duvet is folded in a way that maximizes the showiness of a two-sided/reversible duvet, so if your duvet has two coordinating patterns, folding and draping is a great way to show them off.
- A more tailored, European approach to the duvet is to tuck the sides neatly under the mattress and box springs assembly as shown in the photo above. Here, West Elm's beautiful Lotus Pink Linen Cotton Blend duvet is tucked in a stylish way, with a jaunty angle to the top fold. This is a great approach for platform beds, beds with tall footboards, and more traditional and antique beds, like four-posters. A good variation: tuck in only the bottom edge of the duvet and let the ends drape over the sides of the bed.
- Be sure to always carefully measure your mattress width and the height of your mattress/box springs assembly so you can purchase a duvet that's large enough to drape or tuck over the sides of the bed. The last think you want is for your duvet to look like it's a little napkin stuck on top of the bed, barely covering it.
- A final treatment (not pictured here) is rolling the duvet up and having the rolled fabric at the bottom of the bed.
- Hate duvets? This works for bedspreads and quilts, too, or try layering quilts under a duvet for plays of texture, pattern, and color. Have fun dressing your bed!
If you're interested in learning more about wedding planning and decor, we encourage you to explore the Sheffield School, New York, NY. Sheffield began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.