There are many challenges that come with young adulthood: paying your bills, navigating roommate issues, not spending all your money on Seamless because you're too lazy to cook, and not spending all your money at the bar because it's Friday and you're in your 20s. But perhaps the greatest challenge of all: picking what color sheets to put on your bed.Sheets are not merely pieces of cloth you sleep between. Your sheets and your bed say something about who you are, especially to the people you invite over to join you in it. The girl with a pastel blue powderpuff of a bed, laden with tiny useless pillows, is not the girl who has one gray fitted sheet and an uncovered duvet on her mattress on the floor. I actually don't know the first girl, but the second girl is me.White sheets are classic. Crisp and clean, they conjure images of breezy beach cottages and minimalistic penthouses. In a lazily decorated bedroom, they can verge on sterile, so put some stuff on your walls. The danger with white sheets is that they get super, super dirty — I don't have kitchen or living room furniture which means I essentially live in bed.
Coffee in bed (which my boyfriend constantly spills), dinner in bed, 4 A.M. chips in bed. Before you freak out and douse me in bleach, know that I change my sheets every week. But I also have four sets of sheets and wash them all once a month. I don't have the time, energy, or prewash treatment to be scrubbing God knows what out of my white sheets every week: one hungover march down to the laundry room to rinse coffee out of my sheets was enough. If you are less filthy than me (or have a maid), perhaps white sheets are for you.Black sheets are kind of subversive, kind of sexy. I had black sheets when I lived in France, and they added nice dimension to my all-white garret apartment that was the size of a horse's stall. Black sheets are great until you have sex on them, because certain fluids dry white. Suddenly not so sexy anymore. Black sheets are trying too hard. Black sheets should be banned. I should never have thought moving to Paris would suddenly make me the kind of person who could have black sheets.
Gray sheets are what I'm working with now; they seemed a good midway point between white and black. They're less likely than white sheets to get all gross from being sweated on and less likely than black sheets to look like something you'd encounter in the first five minutes of a Law & Order: SVU episode. The only problem is lube. Lube will completely f*ck up your gray sheets. Red sheets remind me of my freshman-year roommate, who had red satin sheets and all this sheer red fabric draped over her bed so our dorm room looked kind of like a chintzy brothel. She now works in fashion and has a boyfriend on Wall Street. They seem to travel a lot. My personal hatred for colors (and need for a soothing, neutral-toned bedroom) means I will likely never have red sheets, but were I a bolder sort of person, I would give them a shot.I had light blue jersey sheets for a while. They were like sleeping in a full-body T-shirt, and it was amazing. But eventually I dumped so many gin and tonics on them that they had to go.
(I went through a weird drinking-in-bed-phase.) I also once had a gentleman caller who had dark blue sheets of an extremely high thread count. He was whatever, but I always slept really, really well at his place. Dark green sheets are a very popular choice among the early 20-something male set. I have probably slept on a lot of dark green sheets. They are very popular. Know what else is popular? Two and a Half Men and those orange 5-Hour Energy Shots you buy at the bodega. Patterned sheets can be a huge success or a spectacular failure. A bold stripe in the right room, for example, might make Martha Stewart proud. The floral sheets I grew up sleeping on, however, I never want to see again.That old saw that you spend a third of your life in bed means you also spend a third of your life in your sheets—more if you're me, I guess. But your sheets also reflect the mood of the most personal room in your house, and something about who you are, or who you want yourself to be. Perhaps someday I'll have really adult bedding: cream sheets woven with the finest cotton, the kind I imagine Oprah sleeps in.
But for now I'm OK with the gray set I bought in multiples at Ikea. No matter how badly I mess them up, there's always a fresh set hidden in the back of my closet, and I can have a second chance for less than 20 bucks. I guess that's the thing about sheets, and love too—it doesn't matter what's going to impress other people—you just have to know what works for you.—Written by Jessie Lochrie for HowAboutWeWhat sheets do you have? Do you and your sheets of choice fit the matching explanation?Guess How Frequently Single Men Change Their Sheets. (The Answer Is Horrifying)Tips for Single Women From 19389 Things They Don't Tell You About Dating an ArchitectFiguring out the perfect color combination for a masculine bedroom design isn't always as easy as it seems. There tend to be fewer choices, both with pattern and color, and even materials can be a bit confusing. Matt Dayka Photography, Matt Dayka Photography To help, we've put together a quick cheat sheet to make sure that your bachelor bedroom always looks on point.
With the right color combination, even a color that is traditionally not a no-go when thinking about dude design can look chic and fresh. Enter this purple bedroom. Pairing a cool-toned gray with purple is the perfect way to balance them both. Gray is a particularly great choice when you don't quite want to dive into a dark palette but know that you want something other than white. This hue allows you to add flavor to the room but in a subtle and more understated way. You really can't go wrong with choosing crisp, white linens for your space. And the great thing about white is that it truly goes with any and every color scheme and style. White is also a super flexible choice because you can keep a variety of blankets or throws in other colors that can be easily switched in whenever you'd like to change up the look. To add a bit of extra spice, you can also try to find some white sheets that have other accent colors or a bold band. Going with a dark-toned sheet set or blanket can bring a lot of warmth and coziness to your space.