White Sale Wisdom
Hello January home preppers! Hopefully you're caught up on your needs for outside contractors. Now it's time to really review your linens as many larger sellers follow the tradition of January White Sales...discounting sheets and towels. Remember that your housekeeper may be working on several houses during Masters. Make his/her life easier. In our home, all bath towels are white, so that the housekeeper can easily stock bathrooms without a care as to which bathroom matches which set of towels. I've found very nice bundled sets of white towels at Costco. How many towels do you need? If your home sleeps eight, you should have 16 sets of towels...at least 16 generous bath towels and 16 washcloths. Hand towels won't generally be changed out as often. Do note, if you have a hot tub, have an ample supply of beach towels for that area. Also, in the years where it is either very hot or very rainy, your guests may go through more towels than usual. You may also want a basket at the door for shoe towels for rainy days. We have cheap, navy hand towels for this purpose. A rainy Masters day can create some muddy shoes for spectators.
Sheets should be in pristine order and again, you need two sets per bed...one in use and one being washed. Look at your mattress pads. Are they too in perfect condition? If not, put this on your shopping list. If you have different sized beds in your home, you may want to separate these by color or use a laundry safe marker to add a small K or Q to the bottom of each sheet. No housekeeper has time to decide which white sheet is a queen and which is a king. Make life easy for your assistants.
Do you need fresh pillows? Do you have extra pillows in case you have a guest with a preference for very soft or very hard pillows? We leave a basket of extra pillows in the upstairs hallway for those who aren't happy with what is furnished on the bed. We also zip all of our pillows into fresh pillow covers before adding a pillowcase.
Lastly where are you setting up your linen space for your housekeeper? We clean out my sewing room, creating a large area where the housekeeper can come in and stack sheets by size, towels by size and get right to work. (I actually label the table and laundry baskets underneath to keep an organized system.) This is also an area where a guest could find extra sheets and towels if needed. Remember, your housekeeper is likely coming in with baskets of fresh sheets and towels daily. Where will she sort them behind the scenes?
Take the time to create a guest friendly bedtime experience for your guests. We all know how important a clean and comfortable bed makes us feel when traveling. Your bed spaces should be welcoming, pristine, and very relaxing.
