My preferred technique is to also start with the cover inside out. Then put your hands inside the cyber into its corners. Then grasp two corners of the duvet through the fabric. A bit of shaking to turn the cover the right way out and you are done.
The rolling method is really exactly the same thing, but some people find it easier to think about reaching in for the corners after rolling, and you don't need to be tall enough to let it fall down into place (wife is 5'4" and rolls, I'm 6'4" and just reach for the far corners).
If the cover is not already inside out, then grab two duvet corners in on hand and pass to one cover corner (inside the cover ofc.) use your free hand to pinch cover corner and one of the duvet corner from the outside. Now place the remaining corner inside the cover(keep pinching the other corner). Pull your arm out, pinch this corner, shake to align.
I used to do the shove it in and frantically thrash until it take shape. Then I learnt this system and it is much easier. For a king size: maybe just get someone to help.
Yeah, I don't think there's a need for the roll. You just need to make sure you can hold it high enough in the air to shake the thing without letting the bottom rest on the floor.
I just think of it like a really big pillow case. I put the pillow case on inside out so I do the same for the duvet cover.
I don't remember where I picked this up either, but I do remember it caused an ex girlfriend to get irrationally angry and tell me I was doing it wrong... that's when I knew she wasn't a keeper!
I discovered this method in the early 80s as a kid on French TV.
There was a program with Jacques Martin about "incredible" stuff. I remember a hairdresser who used a flame and J Martin almost agreed to try, another one about the world record in going back and forth through a door.
That one was the world record in how many duvets you can handle in a given time IIRC.
Note that this was 80, 81 or around that. This was the only source for such stuff in France so it was a big show (for children at least)
That works but it is hard to use that technique on king size duvet. I essentially use the technique described in the article by starting with the cover turned inside out on top of duvet, tying all corners and then reaching through the cover opening for the far side and pulling it in instead of rolling and unrolling.
I always change the sheets in our house because my partner absolutely hates doing it. I recently realised this is because she has dramatically less upper-body strength than me, the "bit of shaking" is pretty exhausting for her with our heavy winter duvet. So this technique could be really useful for people with her build!
I use the same method. Although when reaching into the cover to its corners, I sometimes put my head in too. I stand up like some sort of inverted-duvet covered ghost and give the dog a fright. Then I continue the process again.
Yeah when I read this, I thought the step of tying all the corners seemed more than necessary. You only have to hold two of the corners and pull/shake.
The shaking part requires a lot of upper body strength that not everyone has. I can get a nice whip-snap out of a down comforter on a double bed but not a king. I ended up with a new synthetic comforter on the double and can barely make the far end rustle now because it weighs like 5 times as much.
WTF!?
I heard before that putting a cover on a duvet was a thing, a problem, a mystery...
are ppl making this up? is this a joke I don't get
invert, tie corners together and what not...
my family and everyone i know do it the way @pablobaz describes it.
it's simple and effective. change sheets whenever you feel like doing it, because its easy and fast...
endof story
It's how I do it but we have a very large and heavy duvet; this technique (that my mom showed me once and I then promptly forgot) is a lot less impactful, since the shaking kinda requires you to lift and shake the whole thing.
I was never taught this, but I ended up "reinventing" it a few decades ago, certainly because this is the most efficient way ? I have always used this technique since.
Yeah, this is exactly how I do it except I don’t even bother to turn anything inside out. Just place the two “far” corners of the inner all the way into the corners of the cover, then grip the corners firmly and shake until everything finds its place. Easy.
The shaking also has the effect of fluffing up the down/feather filling nicely and distributing it evenly, which you should do once in a while if you have a non-synthetic duvet.
The rolling technique described in the article just seems ridiculous, way too much work!
While it was quaint to read through the high effort blog post, it was like reading a cooking blog that starts off with reminiscing about travels through an Italian village where they learnt how to make toast.
” Imagine replacing your duvet cover in minutes”
When i was 18 and begun my career I hospitality, we’d change a twin bed completely in like 3-4 minutes. How do you spend minutes with just one duvet (excluding disabilities but that’s quite obvious).
Also, this is why Swedish duvet covers have holes in the upper corners, just reach through them and grab the liner and pull it in, shake a bit, and you’re done.
I can think of lots of reasons. My double bed is in the corner of a small room so I only have access to one side of it. Lifting the mattress to put on a fitted sheet is very awkward and pretty strenuous. This also means that there isn't much room for laying out both a duvet and duvet cover. Typically I lay them both on the bed at the same time because I don't want either to touch the floor which makes inserting the duvet into the cover even more awkward. Next is the fact that a double sized duvet is almost but not quite square. It's quite easy to grab a corner of the duvet and match it with the wrong corner of the cover. Lastly, I only do this about once a week not 10 times a day so I haven't had a need to find a better method so far.
Ours is against three walls - you can only access the bed from the foot. It’s also four feet up in the air as we put a closet under the bed.
Turns out you can put on a fitted sheet while you’re on the bed really easily - just lift the head, bending the mattress and the corners in slightly, get the corners on, then off you hop and pull the corners onto the foot - takes 30 seconds at most, and there’s no walking around or lifting the entire mattress.
> Also, this is why Swedish duvet covers have holes in the upper corners, just reach through them and grab the liner and pull it in, shake a bit, and you’re done.
Just as an FYI, this is going away. At least IKEA stopped doing this. From what I heard, people complained thinking the holes were made in error. Stupidity wins again.
I do it in fifteen seconds at most, stuffing it without any consideration just keeping two corners in one hand, then matching them with two cover's corners and gently shaking.
Also genuinely baffled about the article, but to be honest, not the first time that I hear someone hating the procedure and describing some problem that I don't understand.
Maybe 30s here, but I'm not claiming to be the fastest; I'm wondering if body length is a factor. As a somewhat tall person (189cm) in my 50s I never had any issues changing doona covers.
Had a much shorter girlfriend at one point who simply said "that's not fair" when she saw me do it.
I guess I’ve been lucky in which duvets and liners I have met in my life. Only time I’ve met opposition is with flannel covers, but those are just horrible in all other ways except for starting fires.
Not quite, but the liners are some 20 years. Changed and washed twice a year in 90 degrees and still fresh.
Save for the buttons that fell victim to our stone mangle, the covers of the same age are as new as well. That said, none of them are ikea, it’s sort of work place injury from the hotel business to use high quality linen.
I am generally what one would consider an intelligent person in most respects (university professor doing research in STEM involving plenty of math, etc.) but for some reason, I am totally unable to understand how this technique works.
I can follow the instructions, I know that it works, and I have a vague, superficial idea of why it's plausible for it to work (something like "things are inverted twice so it turns out OK") but I am unable to make a mental model of exactly how and why it works.
I find this quite annoying because it also makes me forget the technique every time (typically I remember things because I understand them, and I don't understand this... for me, the correct way to do it is equally plausible as other alternatives, so I forget the correct steps). I do it together with my wife and she always has to give me detailed step-by-step instructions as if I were a kid, and I think she thinks I'm trolling her because for her it's obvious, but I'm not trolling.
It's funny how one's mind can have weaknesses of this kind. (Related to the same weakness, I also get confused and spend a few seconds thinking when a sweater has its sleeves outside in or when I have to recover something from a coat pocket with the coat hanging, sometimes I actually put on the coat to avoid thinking about where the pocket is, but the duvet replacing thing is the most extreme manifestation because not even by stopping and thinking can I understand how it works).
Imagine this way. You have three papers stack together. The top paper is the duvet. The bottom two paper are the cover. If you flip the bottom page over the other two papers, you have the duvet paper between the cover pages. For the real cover, you can not do that because the three sides are stitched together. So you roll the them together then you can invert through the opening.
Thanks for the explanation. I’m with you up until that last part. Maybe it’s just a “you have to try it kind of thing. Otherwise I’m not really sure the mechanics of what is happening when the unrolling is happening.
I wasn't even aware duvets were still used outside of hotels. You guys don't just have sheets and a regular blanket on your bed? Is it a cultural/regional thing? They seem very annoying to deal with and I've never found them to be particularly comfortable, so I'm surprised so many people here seem to use them.
You can have a much higher quality material for both inside and outside, and washing the cover is easier than a full comforter. You wash the inside more rarely with a duvet cover. You can also have one inside and many covers for variety of styles during seasons without having an entire room of the house for storing comforters
Vacuum bags are good for storing that kind of stuff compactly. My duvet and duvet covers semi-permanently live in one! The only kind of blanket I’ve found that is not too warm is gauze.
Exactly, living in Europe, I've literally encountered the sheet+blanket combination for the first time a week ago, in a hotel. Duvets with covers ARE the norm.
I think it's regional. Growing up in the western USA, I never saw a duvet with a removable cover. Living in Japan/Korea, I've never seen people use the sheets+blanket arrangement in the home.
BTW, I first heard the word "duvet" as a teenager watching British comedy on PBS. I had to look it up in the dictionary.
Grew up in the Midwest. Unusual in my family and circles. I’ve known what they are since some time in my teens (there’s… a chance the film Fight Club’s actually the first time I both encountered the word and put together some idea of what it specifically meant, though I’d heard it before and thought it was just a fancy word for “comforter”) but we never had any, I’ve never put a cover on one, and I’ve never seen someone putting a cover on one.
Duvets are really warm, good in winter for cold houses without good insulation. Often they're as warm as three or four or even five woolen blankets, but much lighter. Four blankets on top of you is heavy.
I find them annoying in hotels though, where the rooms are usually pretty warm. They use relatively thin inners but they're still usually way too hot for the conditions.
My absolute favorite items in this world are my down comforters and duvets. I have a thick one for winter and a thin one for summer. Sometimes I have them both on the bed and use one as a snuggle blanket. Every night when I crawl in bed it is a form of catharsis like a cat making biscuits.
Most of the people I knew in Australia 10 years ago had duvets. I never even knew what a duvet was until I went to Australia. Moved back to the US and got one. I can only think of one other person I know here who has a duvet
Depends on which part of Europe. In Spain, duvets weren't even a thing in the 80s, at least as far as I know. Everyone used sheets and blankets and/or conforters. The first time I met duvets was in foreign hotels, later Spanish hotels started using them too, and even later, laypeople started using them.
They quickly gained traction (Ikea probably had a big role there) and now both alternatives are common, although I'd say maybe duvets are already the most common.
The Spanish words for duvet and duvet cover (edredón nórdico, funda nórdica) are a testament of the fact that they used to be a foreign thing, here associated (I don't know if accurately or not) with the north of Europe.
I take it you're in a warmer climate, a regular blanket is insufficient for many months of a year here. Like growing up, I had multiple blankets and a duvet, and had similar in some less well insulated houses I've lived in. My current house is better insulated, so a duvet on its own is generally sufficient.
I don't know what you consider to be a warmer climate, but I'm in the midwest US and it goes from around -10°F to 110°F here throughout the year. The temperature outside has pretty much nothing to do with my choice of bedding though, because it's always within 1° of 67°F inside my home unless my HVAC system is broken.
I know a lot of places aren't as into complete climate control as we are around here, so it makes sense that those places would have different priorities when making bedding choices, now that I think about it. Thanks for sharing.
Hah, this is definitely a cultural thing. Except that I’ve visited the US, I wouldn’t even be aware that blankets were still a thing; when I was a kid in the 90s duvets had already largely taken over (Ireland is a blanket -> duvet country).
Where I'm from we have holes in the top corners of the cover. Just put your arms in there, grab the duvet and pull it in, shake it a bit, done (additionally you might need to fix the bottom corners and shake again). I was surprised when I went to other countries where you have to fiddle with only a bottom opening.
In 2007 Ikea stopped selling duvet covers with holes in the corners. “It’s for the international market” they said.
There was a national uproar. People no longer knew how to make their beds.
Attempts were made at convincing them to bring the holes back but without success. We have now settled for the typical Swedish response of making an angry fist with the hand securely hidden inside a pants pocket.
I personally just used the covers alone, but I also found out that finally there is some with buttons or even with zipper. And pillow covers with zippers are amazing.
We've had multiple covers, and the one that we've liked the most has holes in the top corner, along with ties.
Long story but we went to someone to have a cover custom made (she advertised this kind of thing, and for us it was partially to use fabric that had sentimental value for us). She ended up arguing with us about how we didn't need the holes, and demonstrated this flip move that seemed impractical for a large comforter.
I wish all duvets and covers had ties, and more importantly covers with holes. It's so much simpler and direct a solution.
I have no idea where my wife found them but we have duvets with an opening ⅓ of the way up, ½ the width of the duvet. Means you can’t invert it, instead just the top corners out through the hole, and I usually need to use my teeth as a third hand while I use the others to stuff the duvet in through the hilariously tiny aperture.
For a queen size duvet I just stuff the entire duvet inside the cover and then align the two corners farthest from the hole, pinch from the outside and shake, takes less than a minute if I'm in a rush and no inversion required. I do have very long arms though, and maybe this would be faster for a king size duvet cover.
This is what I do as well basically. It's usually more confusing to me to figure out what's top and bottom versus sides than to actually put the cover on.
This practice of roll-invert-unroll is very common in India. I recall putting on liners on beddings and blankets when I was ~6 year old in the 1990s.
I didn't realize until I saw comments that it's not the normal way here in western parts. I think may be hospitality industry may use it already and not commonly documented.
Thanks for documenting it. Now I have a blog to point to when teaching my kids.
Readit News
Edit: I guess there's this rolling method, which seems a lot more convoluted based on the videos.
I just think of it like a really big pillow case. I put the pillow case on inside out so I do the same for the duvet cover.
I don't remember where I picked this up either, but I do remember it caused an ex girlfriend to get irrationally angry and tell me I was doing it wrong... that's when I knew she wasn't a keeper!
There was a program with Jacques Martin about "incredible" stuff. I remember a hairdresser who used a flame and J Martin almost agreed to try, another one about the world record in going back and forth through a door.
That one was the world record in how many duvets you can handle in a given time IIRC.
Note that this was 80, 81 or around that. This was the only source for such stuff in France so it was a big show (for children at least)
It was a bit more science leaning but got kids to awe just the same way.
my family and everyone i know do it the way @pablobaz describes it. it's simple and effective. change sheets whenever you feel like doing it, because its easy and fast... endof story
I grew up in a family that had (home made!) blankets and quilts, duvets were not a thing until I moved out on my own.
The shaking also has the effect of fluffing up the down/feather filling nicely and distributing it evenly, which you should do once in a while if you have a non-synthetic duvet.
The rolling technique described in the article just seems ridiculous, way too much work!
same method, but in video form.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ebiyOtn7NA
Turns out you can put on a fitted sheet while you’re on the bed really easily - just lift the head, bending the mattress and the corners in slightly, get the corners on, then off you hop and pull the corners onto the foot - takes 30 seconds at most, and there’s no walking around or lifting the entire mattress.
Just as an FYI, this is going away. At least IKEA stopped doing this. From what I heard, people complained thinking the holes were made in error. Stupidity wins again.
Also genuinely baffled about the article, but to be honest, not the first time that I hear someone hating the procedure and describing some problem that I don't understand.
Had a much shorter girlfriend at one point who simply said "that's not fair" when she saw me do it.
Ours is supremely irritating because the duvet gets folded over or bunched up inside the cover and shaking it does not fix this.
So I have to get bodily into the fucking cover and stick each corner in place. It's infuriating and I hate duvets for this reason.
I can follow the instructions, I know that it works, and I have a vague, superficial idea of why it's plausible for it to work (something like "things are inverted twice so it turns out OK") but I am unable to make a mental model of exactly how and why it works.
I find this quite annoying because it also makes me forget the technique every time (typically I remember things because I understand them, and I don't understand this... for me, the correct way to do it is equally plausible as other alternatives, so I forget the correct steps). I do it together with my wife and she always has to give me detailed step-by-step instructions as if I were a kid, and I think she thinks I'm trolling her because for her it's obvious, but I'm not trolling.
It's funny how one's mind can have weaknesses of this kind. (Related to the same weakness, I also get confused and spend a few seconds thinking when a sweater has its sleeves outside in or when I have to recover something from a coat pocket with the coat hanging, sometimes I actually put on the coat to avoid thinking about where the pocket is, but the duvet replacing thing is the most extreme manifestation because not even by stopping and thinking can I understand how it works).
BTW, I first heard the word "duvet" as a teenager watching British comedy on PBS. I had to look it up in the dictionary.
I find them annoying in hotels though, where the rooms are usually pretty warm. They use relatively thin inners but they're still usually way too hot for the conditions.
They quickly gained traction (Ikea probably had a big role there) and now both alternatives are common, although I'd say maybe duvets are already the most common.
The Spanish words for duvet and duvet cover (edredón nórdico, funda nórdica) are a testament of the fact that they used to be a foreign thing, here associated (I don't know if accurately or not) with the north of Europe.
I know a lot of places aren't as into complete climate control as we are around here, so it makes sense that those places would have different priorities when making bedding choices, now that I think about it. Thanks for sharing.
Someone should make a map colour coded with this.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/why-millennials-aren-apos-t-...
There was a national uproar. People no longer knew how to make their beds.
Attempts were made at convincing them to bring the holes back but without success. We have now settled for the typical Swedish response of making an angry fist with the hand securely hidden inside a pants pocket.
Long story but we went to someone to have a cover custom made (she advertised this kind of thing, and for us it was partially to use fabric that had sentimental value for us). She ended up arguing with us about how we didn't need the holes, and demonstrated this flip move that seemed impractical for a large comforter.
I wish all duvets and covers had ties, and more importantly covers with holes. It's so much simpler and direct a solution.
I didn't realize until I saw comments that it's not the normal way here in western parts. I think may be hospitality industry may use it already and not commonly documented. Thanks for documenting it. Now I have a blog to point to when teaching my kids.