Luxury Bed Sheets

This morning on the way to dropping the kids off for school, Sariah asked me, "What are bed bugs?" I managed to thoroughly confuse her on the matter as she kept correcting my descriptions by saying things like, "No, those are mosquitos." "No, those are moths." Thankfully, my bed does not harbor any of those little public health concerns. Which leads me to my topic ... bed sheets.

Back when I was going off to college, my mom gave me a primer in buying bed sheets. Never buy anything less than 180 thread count (TC). Less than 180 TC will pill up and be uncomfortable. Any of you parents ever bought the character sheets for your kids? Don't we know it! I think those sheets usually run about 130 TC. I'm obviously quite naive when it comes to sheets though, because I never put much more thought than that to buying them. I knew that there were "luxury" sheets selling for exorbitant prices. I thought maybe it was just the labeling?

Joseph and I have had our same sheets for a long time. I'm sure both sets are around 200 TC and 8-9 years old. One is a forest green color and the other a maroon color. I hate them. I must sound very fickle with my qualms about bed sheets when there are typhoons and earthquakes destroying everything in sight around the world. At least that's what I keep trying to tell myself. It hasn't worked so far as you will see.

I bought a set of sage green 200 TC sheets last week from Walmart. I walked around until I found the least expensive sheets and then made sure the thread count was acceptable. I was surprised to find that they even sell 130 TC sheets and they were more expensive than the ones I picked up! Then this weekend, I did a Google search for bed sheets, I can't remember why exactly, and ended up at Overstock.com. Wow! I never realized that there were 300, 400, 500, 600, 1000, even 1200 thread count sheets. A whole world has opened up to me that I never knew existed. I believe this is one of the reasons we are cautioned against too much web-surfing!

I looked around on there for a while and read some reviews. I learned that some people like sateen sheets rather than satin because with sateen, they don't fall out of bed. A hilarious mind-picture. I learned that high thread count sheets in cotton are a mess of wrinkles coming out of the drier. Some people iron, some people throw them on the bed, some people just live with the wrinkles because of the luxurious feel of their sheets, some people leave poor reviews that say, "DO NOT BUY THESE SHEETS!"

Well suddenly, my sage green 200 count bed sheets were not good enough for me. I picked them up and ran my hand over them. What? Is that a scratchy feeling? I can't sleep in that! I simply must have luxury sheets!! Plus Overstock.com is telling me that the retail price of these sheets is $199.99, but they are selling them for $46.99. My Walmart sheets were $11.00 for the flat, $11.00 for the fitted, and $5.50 for the pillowcases. About half of what I'd be paying for my luxury sheets. With shipping only $2.95, I decided to go for it. I chose ivory sheets with a 500 TC. They are on the way as I type...

P.S. From what I can tell, overstock.com's prices are really quite good if you are looking for high count bed sheets. It was a little tricky finding the size and color I wanted which is why I settle on ivory. Plus you can't beat their shipping. We are also considering buying some memory foam to get some more life out of our mattress. Those things are heavy and shipping is still only $2.95.