My First Experience With Egyptian Cotton Sheets
When I went off to college, my mother’s best friend Katy got me a set of Egyptian cotton sheets. She said I would appreciate them given what I should expect in a dorm room. I didn’t know what she meant until I got there. Then her comment made a lot of sense. My college dorm room was a white box – created by cinder block walls and a cold tile floor. The kind of space you didn’t write home about unless you were complaining. That was until I opened the Egyptian cotton sheets.
So, here I was, a newly minted college freshman, with a cube refrigerator, a computer, and a set of Egyptian cotton sheets. Along with my clothes that constituted my whole “home” that semester. To make it even more lonely, that semester, my roommate dropped out and I was left with a “double” room for only one person. Suddenly, I was stuck with two twin beds, two desks, and a dresser. I tried covering the cinder blocks with poster, but they only went so far. The Egyptian cotton sheets seemed to hang limply on the thin mattress (only about 3 inches thick) plopped on top of a piece of plywood. Don’t get me wrong – the frame on the bed was attractive, but this was a dorm room. Egyptian cotton sheets aren’t enough to turn it into a truly enjoyable place to be.
As an aside here – when one speaks of Egyptian cotton sheets, one must get a kind of reverent tone in their voice. The phrase ‘Egyptian cotton sheets’ must come off the tongue smoothly, like whipped cream, soft and silky. Egyptian cotton sheets are like that. I love Egyptian cotton sheets, and I love saying ‘Egyptian cotton sheets’. They feel like heaven against the skin and make me feel by turns snooty and seductive when when speaking of them.
However, as fantastic as these Egyptian cotton sheets (*Hallelujah*) were, they they looked sad in my bare dorm room. But, I was stumped on how to turn this lowly room into something worthy of Egyptian cotton sheets. So, when I was browsing the bargain rack at the bookstore one day after class, I picked up a book on making the most of small spaces. Maybe, finally, I could give myself that shiver of delight about the whole room that I got when uttering the phrase, “I sleep on Egyptian cotton sheets at night.”
I may sound melodramatic, but you have to understand that I was majoring in the hardest curriculum at my very selective school. My time was focused on studies, studies, slipping in meals, and more studies. And try as I could to block out the white, cold room, I still sighed every time I looked up from a textbook and took a good look around. But, as much as I sighed, I truly didn’t think I had the time, let alone the money, to do anything with my room. I was between a rock and a hard place – or more accurately – a sensibility influenced by Egyptian cotton sheets and a typical, yucky college dorm room.
The Turning Point for My Dorm With Egyptian Cotton Sheets
Then I found the book on the bargain shelf. It opened my eyes to what could be done. I loved the simplicity of the designs and my eyes filled with ideas of a luxurious bed with the Egyptian cotton sheets, sumptuous pillows and rich wall coverings. In my mind I found a way to resolve the sensibility and the dorm room. I pictured myself shaking out my Egyptian cotton sheets over the bed, warm tan paint surrounding me, tapestries and framed art hung just so.
photo credit: fotographix.ca
Then I crashed back to Earth. I would have to dismantle furniture, and paint the walls, neither of which I was allowed to do. But still that image of shaking out the Egyptian cotton sheets stuck in my mind and refused to let go. What if I could do a toned down version of the full image? While I couldn’t dismantle furniture, there wasn’t any reason I couldn’t move furniture.
So, with that one, reasonable, image of shaking out the Egyptian cotton sheets, and the help of a few good friends, the furniture was moved. One of the closets became a “dressing area” when one the desks was pushed into it. We bunked the beds, which cleared up a lot of floor space. When we pushed the second desk against the end of the bunked beds, I finally had one side of the room look like a design instead of a dorm room. I could sit on my chair one way and do school work. If I turned the chair around, I was at the “dressing area” where I could paint my nails or put on makeup. And – by standing with one foot on the chair and one foot on the desk, I was at the right height to shake out my Egyptian cotton sheets over my bed on the top bunk. It made me smile to do so too.
But, moving furniture wasn’t the only thing I did to transform the room. The other closet was outfitted with plastic modular shelving to become a kind of pantry (cafeteria food sucks). With the addition of about 12 pillows, the bottom bunk became a comfortable couch. If I’d had another set of Egyptian cotton sheets, I would have used them as a slipcover on the couch, but alas, I didn’t.
My biggest outlay of money was for a carpet remnant to cover the entire floor (more help from my friends in getting it under the furniture), and some patterned cotton sheets or throws. These sheet/throws were probably originally intended for something else originally, but they were a good, cheap, alternative to the rugs that I had initially envisioned. I stapled the sheets to dowels that I then hung with wire from the drop ceiling. It was when I was standing on the dresser to reach the ceiling that I realized I could do the whole ‘shaking out the Egyptian cotton sheets thing.’ I was directly across from my bed – which ended up having the best makeover of all. (Well, the best makeover aside from the Egyptian cotton sheets it already had.)
My greatest find was one leftover twin mattress – stuffed in the back of a mattress store, put aside because the plastic covering had ripped while being moved and had also caused a slice in the pillow top. Well, actually, it was my friend Sarah who spotted it. She pulled it out, looked at the cut and realized that with a little bit of stuffing and a needle and thread, the mattress would be as good as new. Otherwise it was perfectly sound. I had a bit of doubt that it was a good idea until she told me to close my eyes and imagine. First she said think about sleeping on my dorm room mattress with the Egyptian cotton sheets. Good, but not great. Then she told me to imagine sleeping on *this* mattress with the Egyptian cotton sheets. She sold me on the idea even if I did still worry that the mattress wouldn’t fit the bed properly. I was also worried it would be too expensive, even with the rip.
photo credit: Mykl Roventine
As it turns out, I didn’t need to worry about either. The store manager agreed to sell it to us at a huge discount instead of returning it to the manufacturer. When we got it back to the dorm, we had a bit of trouble getting it up the stairs, but getting it onto the bed was easy. It fit the frame perfectly. That night I slept on a real pillow top mattress with Egyptian cotton sheets. I felt like a queen – and the complete softness of the Egyptian cotton sheets was heaven. I think it was that night that really turned me into the Egyptian cotton sheets queen, but my friends didn’t start officially calling me that until later.
Egyptian Cotton Sheets Turned My Dorm Room Into A Happening Place
Suddenly, my dorm room was the spot that everyone wanted to meet at when we did study groups. Everyone complimented me on my choice of wall hangings, and appreciated the mass of pillows – many of them large enough to be floor pillows. (The book mentioned this idea as a way to provide extra seating when there wasn’t any floor space for furniture.) While the closet “doors” – really just an accordion screen on a track – were ugly, when closed they hid my dressing area and pantry. I got a functional, but old, TV and put it on the dresser in the corner. It was a good spot to be watched from the bed, couch, or floor. Plus, it was out of the way, leaving a fairly large space in the middle of the room. There was enough room that when I had friends over for study group, we could all sit around comfortably, and still have a spot for a card table with snacks. Or if there was only two of us, like my lab partner and I, working together, we pulled up the two desk chairs around the card table, and had a lot more table space than crowding around a desk would have provided. The card table then collapsed and could be out of the way if I needed the full floor space for something.
But, as much as my friends loved the friendliness of my room for guests, I was absolutely in love with my room, and especially my bed, now. My Egyptian cotton sheets (*Ahh*) and pillow top mattress finally gave me a consistent good night’s sleep. In fact, my friends, especially Sarah, loved my dorm room so much, she agreed to be my roommate the following year, so that I wouldn’t have to work with a new roommate assigned by the school. We did a little bit of shifting because now there was another person living in the room, but we made it work. Many of my best memories of college took place in that room. And all because of a set of Egyptian cotton sheets.
P.S. I got Sarah a set of Egyptian cotton sheets for her bed too. She loved them as much as I loved mine!
Tags: college, dorm room, Egyptian cotton sheets, wall coverings