I'm an infrequent visitor to this board after my project was mostly completed over a year ago, but I do love lurking and looking at pics of gorgeous homes, etc. Anyway, this was a very interesting read with my morning tea. I had no idea! My sheets are washed weekly (though the exact day may vary). They are washed and immediately go back on the bed (king-size--HATE to fold). I wash the mattress pad when I think of it (it's so thick, it has to go to a laundromat, so it's not often) and the duvet cover gets washed 2x year. Luckily our ancient kitty no longer chooses to sleep with us (the bed it too high up for her--she's 20). My mom (very "old-school"--born 1919) would never have washed any more often and was sometimes known to switch the sheets around from top to bottom. She rarely washed blankets and never (that I know of) washed quilts--she aired them out. All of us kids survived quite healthfully. My MIL was worse about cleanliness (and even I cringe) and none of her children were ever sick or had allergies, etc. I think that keeping things overly clean is a detriment to our immune system. Humans spent many more years barely bathing, etc., and only in the last half-century has regular washing of any kind been less of a chore. Maybe ignorance IS bliss? When I was a kid, I'd never heard of dust mites, so I didn't fear them. Oh, and I laughed about the towel on the bed thing, Sherrmann.....I've been known to grab one too, especially when the sheets are fresh clean! Now if I had a live-in maid? Oh, how lovely to have fresh bedding each night......but it ain't ever gonna happen with me having to do it :-) I bet those of you that change your bedding so often also use clean towels each time you bathe?

fnmroberts - beautiful bedroom! Yes, my bed looks almost exactly like yours. I'm looking for sheets elsewhere since the ivory PB everyday sheet that I bought is too dark. Their ivory in the next sheet set up is lighter but says only fits mattresses up to 16". I need 18" minimum for my pillowtop. Tibbrix - thanks for the laundry whitening tip. I could use this to whiten up DD's sheets and bath towels. louislinus - I sometimes like a mix of ivory and white too, but wasn't sure if it would work so well with the porcelain blue thrown in the mix. I noticed DD"s towels and sheets seemed to get dingier than my ivory ones. If you're switching to ivory, I would recommend Costco's Charisma towels. They're a creamier ivory (remind me of French vanilla ice cream) but very pretty and soft and seem to lighten a bit over time. jjam - thanks so much for the link. I was thinking of checking RH since I have a rewards certificate to use. The color does look more like the creamy white I prefer, and they're Egyptian cotton with deep pockets! msrose - I do love my older light ivory sheets with the PB ivory, but I had to replace the fitted sheet and can't find one to match. The PB sheet I bought is so much darker. When I went linen shopping yesterday it seemed every ivory was so different. Some were more beige, others were more yellow. The RH link jjam posted looks promising though and I think RH sells boxspring covers too.

I don't have any suggestions other than what has already been given.someone mentioned awhile back that they used peroxide in their whites when they start looking dingy.Haven't tried that. folkvictorian-My daughter introduced me to glass cleaner as a stain remover.She has been using it for every day stains on clothes and it works! She got the hint from the guy that they buy snow cones from.He said he had tried everything to get the snow cone syrup stains out of his clothes and nothing worked.He decided to try glass cleaner on a whim and said he has been using it ever since.We bought the cheap brand of glass cleaner from Wal-mart in the spray bottle.I tried it on the "ultimate" stain,little Rowdy's clothes,and it worked great.

Yes, the vast differences from neighborhood to neighborhood (block to block, even!) in NYC make it impossible to generalize. In my old neighborhood in Queens, there were a handful of private homes (rowhouses), but the vast majority of housing stock was apartment buildings, mostly pre-war. This type of building almost never allows washing machines in unit, as water is provided by the building and included in the rent (or maintenance fee, if you are an owner). My upstairs neighbor flooded my bathroom with his illegal washer once and the penalties were fairly severe - he was required to pay for all of the damages and was fined a fairly large sum for the infraction. Newer buildings are starting to include in-unit laundry as a MAJOR selling point, and people really will pay A LOT more (rent or purchase price) for this feature. Anyway, larger buildings typically have a laundry room in the basement, but the size and quality of such room varies drastically by building. My building had about 90 units (mostly 1-2 BRs with a handful of studios scattered in) and there were 4 washers and 4 dryers, at least one of which was always out of service. I think they cost $1.50-$1.75 to wash and $.25 per 6 minutes to dry, which meant that drying a load cost at least as much as washing one. The ladies who were running laundry out of the room seemed to be doing the washing/folding themselves, which is why our machines were always in use. There are many laundromats in my old neighborhood, nearly all of which offered wash/fold services, and because of the situation in our building we typically just dropped our laundry off with one of these places and let them do the work. They charge by the pound and it's not cheap, but once you figure in the cost of detergent, the price of the machines in the building and the value of your time (not to mention the hassle), they are not a bad deal. I'm not sure how the ladies in my basement undercut these places, although I imagine their customer base was drawn heavily from inside our building, which adds a huge convenience factor (and presumably a premium price), especially if they were doing pickup and delivery. However, when you're paying by the pound, you definitely find yourself looking at all those heavy towels and piles of bed linen and thinking "eh, I can let this go another week." LOL.