Egyptian Cotton Sheets

As the Egyptian cotton sheets queen, one of my favorite things to do is to window shop at the local home store. I start at the sheets section and marvel over the smooth, soft Egyptian cotton sheets, pick a color I really like and then go around the store and set up my room from there. I have designed my room about 15 times over this way. Too bad I live in an apartment at the moment and can’t paint the walls. But, I’m recording all my ideas and some day I’ll buy (another) set of Egyptian cotton sheets and set up my room.

My friend Wendy is starting her own interior design consulting business, and practically lives at the home store. She’ll take hours long trips to the store, sketching, taking pictures with her cell phone, and generally having a rip roaring great time. I love to join her on these trips because we have such similar tastes; we rif wonderfully off of each other. And, like me, she believes that everyone’s life will get a little better with a set of Egyptian cotton sheets.

Sometimes, she actually has a client she is specifically shopping for on a particular room design. She’s slowly building up a portfolio of completed jobs and supplementing with design ideas. The other day she called me and said that she had gotten a job to design a bedroom. I love designing living rooms, kitchens and other rooms with her, but she knows that bedrooms will always be my favorite because we make sure to start with a set of Egyptian cotton sheets.

Egyptian Cotton Sheets Help Us Pick A Color Palette

Wendy had already explained to her client that she was going to set up the room based on the color of the sheets that the client would choose. She already knew that those sheets were going to be Egyptian cotton sheets, even if she had to convince the client that was the best way to go. She was surprised when the client told her that as long as she went with a blue scheme, it would be fine. So, given blue, we had carte blanche.

Off we went to the home store and headed straight for the Egyptian cotton sheets. I remembered a set of Egyptian cotton sheets that were a deep, rich blue. We decided that they were perfect. We picked them up and put them in our cart. Now that we had our main color, we had to choose a main focal point for the room.

Wendy smoothed her hands over the Egyptian cotton sheets. They were encased in plastic, but I could tell it was helping her to think. “These really are a great color. I love how Egyptian cotton just soaks up color so the sheets are so richly dyed.” She turned to me with a quizzical expression on her face. She asked, “What does that make you think of?”

I thought for a moment and admitted that I had a mental image of dots of color hugging the fibers, kind of like the white chocolate and the milk chocolate in Hershey’s Hugs commercials. Only, more fluid, like water.

“Perfect!” she declared, with a glint in her eye. She patted the Egyptian cotton sheets and steered the cart toward the corner of the store – toward the artwork section, not the bed section.

She started flipping through the prints. Then, she motioned me over to show me the one she had found.

It was about 5 feet long and 3 feet high – a huge canvas printed with tall waves crashing on the shore. It was an awsome photograph and I loved the colors as well as the power suggested by the crashing waves. She then picked up the Egyptian cotton sheets and held them against the painting. “The Egyptian cotton sheets match the color of the waves perfectly. See how the dark of the Egyptian cotton sheets pull out the darker undertones of the wave, the part the sun isn’t quite hitting?” I had to admit she was right.

photo credit: Wonderlane

“I’ll hang the art over the bed, high enough that it won’t get bumped, but low enough that with some pillows underneath, it will double as a headboard.” Sounded a bit risky to the picture to me, but I was willing to roll with it. “Then, to continue with the water feel, I’ll paint the all the trim with super high gloss dark blue paint, so that it looks liquid.”

“Whoa, wait up. High gloss dark blue paint, are you nuts? Is the client going to go for something like that?”

“Not on the whole wall, just on the trim. It’ll pick up the blue in the painting, which will play off of the blue in the Eqyptian cotton sheets. I’ll be great.” I gave her a look, but she continued, ignoring me, “Then, I’ll do a chair rail around the room in glossy stark white and the walls a creamy white with a light blue glaze. Come on, we’ve got to pick out flooring.”

The designer decided that a multicolored blue tile was just the thing. The tile she picked was beautiful, with flecks of gold and white as well. I held up the Egyptian cotton sheets against the tile and they looked great together. The whole room was taking shape on her sketch pad, filled out with references to the pictures she was snapping with her phone. With her eyes gleaming, she said we should go back and put everything into the computer and get a rendering of what it would look like all together.

Egyptian Cotton Sheets Pull It All Together

Since the client had already given her permission to pretty much go with the design, Wendy purchased the picture and the Egyptian cotton sheets.

When we got back to her studio, she put together a computerized rendering, along with the sample of tile she had picked out and the paint swatches. I helped her pack up the car with the design board, the framed print, and the Egyptian cotton sheets.

She called me later that night. “They loved it. I had to sell them a little on the Egyptian cotton sheets since they were big part of the budget. But I told them about how Egyptian cotton sheets get softer with every washing and are super durable. I said, ‘Trust me, you won’t regret it.’”

A few weeks later, she took me to see the finished room. It was even better than the computer rendering she had done. Seeing all the pieces come together was wonderful. And the client loved it too. I helped her take photos from every angle for her portofolio. As we got in the car to leave, she smiled. “You know, I talked them into getting another set of Eqyptian cotton sheets – this time in a creamy white. To match the wall, you know?”

The designer and the Egyptian cotton sheets queen – another well done room mastered.