Sheets

We have a variety of beds at our house.

The king went to my mother's guest room when husband and I switched to XL twins, side by side. His jumps and twitches woke me, two beds totally solved that problem. We did not want to sleep in different rooms. I needed to be able to sleep. The XL twins are pillow tops, so they require special sheets, both XL and deep pockets.

Middle's room has two regular twins that are pillow top. They require deep pockets. The XL twin sheets in T-shirt fabric, left over from college beds, work very well on these beds. Youngest has a similar mattress upstairs that uses the same sheets.

We have one regular twin (no pillow top) that uses regular twin sheets.

Oldest's bed is a 3/4 bed that needs a regular double sheet, no deep pockets, no double/queen size.

And that is my problem.

I am always hunting (oldest's room, laundry, linen closet) trying to remember which sheets go on that bed. And we are changing it constantly because we use it for company very regularly. Yesterday I had the big hunt. I could find the fitted, but not the flat. Still have not found the flat.

About half of our sheets are white.





Last night, I figured out a solution that I should have done years ago.

I ordered a set of Aqua, cotton weave, sheets in a regular double size. Very high thread count. On clearance at Macy's. I had a coupon too.

The only other Aqua colored sheets in the house are EX twin T-Shirt that are in middle's college stuff.

The Macy sheets will be very distinct. And as soon as I have them in hand, going to wash and put right on the bed. And after company, wash and put right back on the bed.






I still have queen size sheets from a long ago bed, floating around, because we use them on an air mattress.

We have a lot of sheets, blankets, quilts, towels, etc. A lot. But when I have a houseful or a revolving door of company, I need them. I often need them all. Sometimes we are full to the gills and then full to the gills again, two days later, with totally different people.

We have asthma and allergies at our house.

I have very large, clear plastic bags. Garbage bag size, but clear and thinner. I have gotten in the habit of bagging sheet (sets) together. So everything for one bed is in a bag with the air squished out and the end loosely tied. This protects against dust mites and keeps sets (not in use) together.

The only problem with this is the white sheet sets all look the same.

Yes, I guess I should be labeling.

Or I should stop buying white.

But the bag thing works really well.

One word of caution - everything must be very dry to go in a bag. Things like quilts and comforters, I line dry after they come out of the dryer. So they get dried, and then more dry.

I have never had anything mold, because I am super careful with my drying. But middle's freshman roommate had something mold, big time.

And I only use clear bags. I know someone who once put three family quilts in a dark garage bag and they disappeared. We can only assume they went out in the garbage. They would have looked like garbage. She was devastated, as you can well imagine.

Gaylord

One of my local librarians mentioned Gaylord as a source for photo storage.

I first ordered envelopes.

2 mil Polyethylene Postcard Envelopes (100-Pack)
ZZ-PB35
Fits up to: 3 1/2H x 5 1/2"W

2 mil Polyethylene Postcard Envelopes (100-Pack)
ZZ-51025
Fits up to: 4H x 6"W

2 mil Polyethylene Envelopes (100-Pack)
ZZ-2810
Fits up to: 8W x 10"H



The envelopes are clear, three sides are fused, the last side has an open slit. I gave these to my mother for mother's day.

We have dismantled three photo albums.

Two were black construction paper like pages and were disintegrating, not to mention not archival safe. And the last was the terrible sticky pages with the plastic sheet over it, which we now know ruins pictures.

We were able to get all the pictures out of all three albums. It was not easy. My mother could not do it. But middle and I could. My mom wrote on the back of pictures, for the few where there were writings on the pages. We left all of it with my mom. She is going through and at least writing names and locations on the back of all the pictures. She can do this at her own pace. And she has nice, readable handwriting.

The librarian had suggested the envelopes. Each picture can be seen (front and back), is protected, and can be handled. That is what we are doing with a lot of these old pictures. We are then dividing by family lines and then going to put in archival safe boxes (also Gaylord).



After our success with the envelopes, I ordered photo albums pages. (My previous sources are all defunct.)

4 mil Polypropylene Album Pages for 4 x 6" Prints (25-Pack)
ZZ-PP4625-6

4 mil Polypropylene Album Pages for 3 1/2 x 5" Prints (25-Pack)
ZZ-PP35525-8

I ordered 5 sets of each.

I have not yet received my Gaylord album pages, I just placed the order today and then called to verify they are in stock and will ship immediately. They are. They will.

I also verified that everything I ordered was archival quality. It is.

To be honest, I did not even compare prices or shop. I was just happy to find what I needed (desperately, we have piles of pictures at this point) and know it would ship immediately and was archival safe.