One of the early purchases we made after the fire was a bed. We had discussed for some time the idea of changing form a queen to a king but never want to commit the space in the room even though we were using more space in the bed.

We were using more space for two reasons. Firs, the dog. We know the dog is not supposed to sleep on the bed with us but she is so cute and furry. She sleeps on the foot of the bed at my feet. Sometimes we get into a space war and too sleepy to notice I kick her off the bed. I always feel pretty bad when I hear crash-thunk. She takes it well but it is less than ideal.

The second reason we were using more bed than we did when we were younger. After my spouse broke his leg and had three pins to repair the litigants in it he is a bit more sensitive to any movement around it. It takes me a long time to I don’t sleep as deeply so small disturbances can wake me right up. Once I get to sleep I tend to sleep right through the wee hours. Unfortunately, the wee hours are a popular time for my spouse to wake up.I sleep cold, he sleeps hot and so forth.

Add that together and we can bother each other a lot which is quite amusing after 36 years of marriage.

Not wanting to change size from the queen since we had a number of sets of really cool sheets including linen pillowcases from my great grandmother, we decided to try one of the memory foam mattresses that were not supposed to transfer movement from one sleeping (or not sleeping) person to the other. It was a great idea and we actually liked it but for one problem in the queen. The edges were so soft that we tended to roll toward the middle and spend all night crawling back up hill from the valley we created.

Enter fire. No house ergo no bedroom ergo no bed ergo no sheets.

The time had come to to start from scratch. We decided on a California king since it is less wide but longer than a king. I thought the longer would be good for Sophie and me in the foot wars and the added width when compared to a queen did not seem too bad.

Well, the things you find out AFTER you buy something expensive like a bed are always surprising. In fact they were so surprising that we returned the first mattress and got a different model which predictably was more expensive.

We got a mattress model that seemed to work but the sheets. Well, the sheets were nightmares. The pillow cases are hard and putting a duvet cover on a duvet was a nightmare of fluffling and tripping and worrying that the only place you could actually reach to put it on was the floor and you just washed the duvet cover.

Folding the sheets are hardly better than the duvet tango. I try to hold them high in the air but still I end up stepping on them when I try to fold them. Then there are the pillows and king pillowcases. Golly. The old tuck the pillow under your chin reach below with a pillow case and effectively drop the pillow into the case. I don’t know how it is with your arms but the distance between my chin and my fingers fall short of the length of a king pillow.

Finally, when trying to position a king sheet on the bed you can have quite the wrestling match since the sheets tend to Velcro themselves when you want to move one over a bit.

Agony. This was supposed to make our lives better, not more complicated. I said over and over, “If someone had told me the linens would be so hard I would have stayed with the queen.

But, we had not bought a queen and the price for the bed we had warranted use not not recycling.

Something had to change. I have found three methods that have taken the agony out of making a king size bed. I suppose everyone but me knows this but I thought I was bring clever.

First fold down the middle on the crosswise side. That first fold keeps the sheets off the sheet immediately. The second fold is top to bottom in half when it comes time to put the sheets on the bed, position the folded sheet about half way down and half way across.you unfold the top to bottom and then unfold the side to side and viola! the sheets are relatively straight.

The next successful wrestling match was with the pillows. Put the offending pillow in the bed with the short end facing you. Grasp firmly and with resolution a pillowcase. Turn the pillow case inside out. Put your hands inside of the case and find the corners. While grasping the corners of the pillowcase grab the corners of the pillowcase. Then you simply roll the pillowcase down the pillow turning it right side out.

The duvet baffled me beyond compare. Unknowingly I took some of the technique from the pillow dance and used it on the duvet. Take the duvet cover and turn it inside out. Gather up the corners that will be toward the head of the bed. Position them in the corners. At this point you just unfold the cover a little at a time making sure to work both the top and bottom of the cover. In no time and without feeling like you ran a marathon the bed is changed.

Now that I have conquered dressing my bed, I would like a place to put my bed. The house is going to elevations tomorrow and then the engineers soon there after. Blue ink, I can almost smell it. I want to see how my bed dressing techniques work in my own home. I can only imagine they will be flawless.