Whatever happened to the flat sheet?

There was a time when no properly made bed would have been considered complete without a flat sheet. It was simply part of the arrangement: mattress, bottom sheet, flat sheet, duvet, pillowcases. Nothing particularly remarkable about it - it was just how beds were made.

These days, things are rather different.

For many of us, the flat sheet has quietly disappeared. Perhaps you don't own one at all. Perhaps there is one folded somewhere at the back of the linen cupboard, brought out only when the weather becomes exceptionally warm. Or perhaps, like many people, you mostly encounter flat sheets when staying in a good hotel. As hotels, interestingly, have never really fallen out of love with them.

So why do hotels still use flat sheets?

There are some very practical reasons.

A hotel linen room is a rather different environment from the average domestic washing machine. Sheets are washed frequently, at high temperatures, and passed through heavy-duty commercial ironing and pressing machines before being folded, stacked and sent back upstairs. A flat sheet is particularly well suited to this treatment.

Without elasticated corners or fitted seams, it can pass smoothly through industrial presses without catching or becoming misshapen. It can be folded and stacked quickly, too, which matters when you're dealing with hundreds of pieces of linen. 

Then there is flexibility. A flat sheet doesn't need to be made to fit one particular mattress depth. The same sheet can work across beds of slightly different sizes, which makes rather more sense when you are running a hotel with bedrooms of all shapes and sizes.

So yes, there is a certain amount of practicality behind the continued popularity of the flat sheet. But practicality isn't the whole story...

There is something rather lovely about a flat sheet

If you've ever climbed into a beautifully made hotel bed, you'll know the feeling.

Everything feels crisp and orderly, without being at all stiff. There are layers of linen between you and the duvet, and the whole bed has a certain sense of "completeness" to it.

A flat sheet can be used directly over the mattress, beneath the duvet, or both (our favourite) It provides another layer between you and the duvet itself, which is particularly useful from a hygiene point of view when the duvet is not something that is necessarily being washed after each and every guest.

It also simply makes a bed feel more finished.

Perhaps that is part of the reason the flat sheet has endured in hotels. It is practical, certainly, but it also contributes to that unmistakable hotel-bed feeling: fresh, generous and quietly luxurious.

Perhaps we've been overlooking it at home

The fitted sheet has obvious advantages: it stays put, it is quick to put on and it saves a certain amount of wrestling with corners. But the flat sheet offers something different.

It is beautifully simple - just a generously sized piece of quality linen, tucked neatly around the bed.

And there is something rather satisfying about the ritual of it.

For warmer nights, it can be used on its own instead of a duvet. In colder months, it adds another layer between you and the duvet. And if you are someone who appreciates a properly made bed, it is one of those small details that can make the whole thing look - and feel - that little bit more considered.

The Beaumont & Brown flat sheet

Our flat sheets are made from the same carefully chosen, 400 count pure cotton sateen bed linen we supply for beautifully dressed bedrooms, and are available in a range of sizes to suit different beds.

You don't necessarily need to rethink the whole bedroom, sometimes the smallest additions make the biggest difference. And perhaps the flat sheet deserves another chance!