Bedroom basics

When I first met my husband he was working on his PhD at McGill and living with his parents. He slept on a single bed covered in a quilt made by his grandmother for him while he was still a boy and lay his head on a pillow that had been condensed with time to a thick pancake--minus the fluff. I never heard a complaint out of him concerning his sleeping arrangements, until he moved in with me.

Once you get to sleep in a good bed you can never go back, which brings me to my first point, buy the best you can afford. You can skimp on many things but a mattress, good pillows, soft sheets and duvet makes or breaks your slumber.

My preference is for 100% cotton sheets with a high thread count. Other choices include linen and silk; they all have their benefits; but the best way to verify the quality and texture is by touching them. If you can’t touch ‘em don’t buy ‘em.

The same goes for feather pillows and duvets, quality is incredibly important otherwise you’ll find pillows prickly and feathers everywhere when changing the sheets. Look for words like double stitched and high thread count to prevent leakage.

The bulk of our twenty four hour day is spent in our bedroom sleeping, dressing, reading or watching TV. It is the place where we begin and end our day. Yet bedrooms are often an afterthought and living rooms and dining rooms are given priority. Begin with quality basics and built on them, put your money where your back is and you’ll feel refreshed in the morning.

Here are a few interesting tips from the science guys to help improve your room air quality. According to NASA researchers, plants such as bamboo palm, English ivy, and pot mum take in carbon dioxide and produce oxygen in the course of photosynthesis. They also filter pollutants such as carbon monoxide and benzene. And research in England and at Wesleyan University in Connecticut suggests that the aroma of lavender, in particular, helps improve sleep.

Charles Caleb Colton said “The bed is a bundle of paradoxes: we go to it with reluctance, yet we quit it with regret; we make up our minds every night to leave it early, but we make up our bodies every morning to keep it late.”

He must have had a great bed.

Today my husband raves about the benefits of a good bed. It took one night for him to come around to my way of sleeping. Starting with great quality basics is the recipe for a good nights sleep. Have a personal style question or interior design conundrum? Have a great local style resource? Please send them to me . . . we want to hear from you! Send e-mail questions, comments, insults or complaints to jakdesigns@live.com