You'll have to admit that when staying in a fine hotel that offers turn-down service it's always a pleasure to see ironed sheets and a chocolate on the pillow or bedside table. It not only lets you know that the bed has indeed been changed from the previous night's guest, but it also feels quite nice to slide in between freshly ironed bed linens.
But after that first momentary pleasure, five minutes later the sheets get all wrinkled again, don't they? Which is why in my own humble apartment the sheets come directly out of the dryer and straight onto the bed - skipping all the labor of ironing.
Hotels have these massive rotary machines to both iron and fold the sheets in one quick and easy task. But in a private home, there's nothing quick or easy about it. The whole procedure is labor intensive (to say the least!) and can take a couple of hours or more to complete. It's common knowledge that Martha Stewart has her sheets ironed and changed every day. But she's rich and has a full house staff (including a laundry tech no doubt) to accommodate this obsession without having to lift a finger herself.
Oh dear lord, what to do? I'd never ironed so much as a handkerchief in my entire life! My first thought was to hire someone to do it - which would be efficient of course, but cheating. And I really wanted to learn the job top to bottom, especially since part of a butler/house manager's task is to train new employees.
So the next step, simply borrow an ironing board and iron, right? But oops, not one of my déclassé wash-and-wear friends owned such a thing. So off to Walmart I went to purchase the clumsy instruments. (And then back again an hour later to buy an ironing board cover. Who knew, right?)
I have to tell you that this whole procedure, being the first time, took me the entire afternoon! The pillow cases were a snap and the king-size top sheet, while time consuming, was relatively easy as well - compared to the fitted bottom sheet that turned out to be a real bitch to wrangle and iron.
Then folding them correctly into tight little bundles was another nightmare altogether - especially, again, the bottom sheet sheet. Mercifully Cheryl Mendelson's brilliant book entitled Home Comforts (required reading by the academy) has detailed charts about how to fold anything from clothes to dinner napkins and bed sheets - which was a life saver! And all said and done I got a 90% grade on that test, which was a huge relief.
There are such things as small Rotary Irons for home use. Miele makes an affordable one (about $2,000) that's great for ironing dinner napkins, pillow cases, and the top bed sheet. But there's nothing on God's green earth to help with the bottom sheet.
I hope this post has been somewhat helpful in deciding whether or not to iron your sheets and how to go about it. Personally I don't recommend it one bit if you can avoid it. I think it was Socrates who said, "Work once begun must be continued." (Or was that Gandhi?)
Good night, and as always thanks for stopping by this evening.
Andrew
