Isabella Beeton, The Book of Household Management, 1861
Chapter XLI.
Domestic Servants.
Accessed via: etext.library.adelaide.edu.au
Chapter XLI.
Domestic Servants.
Accessed via: etext.library.adelaide.edu.au
When I first started boarding school back in the early 1980s, our list of requirements included “two blankets”. With these two blankets we were expected to make a neat bed each morning. The blankets were to be tucked in tightly together with the starched and wrinkle-free school-supplied white sheets (flat only, no fitted). The top sheet was to be folded back over the blankets and the whole thing topped off with a regulation blue and white heavy cotton quilt.
Before we left the boarding house for school each day we had to fold each of the sides of the quilt up onto the bed so that the cleaners could easily vacuum under the beds. They then pulled the sides down as they finished each dormitory. When we returned from school in the afternoon, we were expected to fold the quilt into a small square and put it on the top of our wardrobes, ready for the next morning.
Given no-one was actually allowed into the boarding house during the day, I could never quite see the point of all this quilt routine! However, it did instill in me a respect for the ritual of making a bed each morning and making it well.
At some point during my boarding school years, doonas (duvets, continental quilts, comforters) hit Australia. Suddenly there was a bedding option which didn’t require neat tucking in. You could simply pull up and smooth out…voila, a made bed! There was much debate among the boarding house powers-that-be about whether girls would be permitted to have doonas instead of blankets. Eventually the doonas were given the green light – provided they were tucked in all the way around and smoothed out to mimic the appearance of a blanket-made bed.
From that point on, the making of dormitory beds was never the same. By the time I left school, doonas were the rule rather than the exception, and due to a problem in supply of replacements for worn out ones, the quilts (and their associated folding rituals) were also abandoned.
Now I wish I could instill in my daughters that same respect for a neatly made bed. Although they both have doonas on their beds, they have sheets underneath and, call me old-fashioned, I like a neatly-tucked sheet rather than a hastily hidden mess of scrunched up linen.
There is only one way to achieve the neatness of tuck required and that is with the old-style hospital corner.
The practice of creating tight, origami-type folds of the bedding dates back to when hospital beds did not have safety rails. A firmly made bed could keep a drugged or injured patient in place, preventing any accidental rolls out of bed. Nurses through the ages have prided themselves on their ability to fold hospital corners, and those in the military forces aim for the legendary 'coin-bounce" degree of neatness in making their beds.
I tried to teach my five year old daughter the art of hospital corners in a step by step tutorial, but perhaps I was a little ambitious?
Step 1: smooth top sheet over the bed, tuck the foot of the sheet in.
Step 2: Holding the bottom edge of the sheet, pull it onto the bed to form a triangle.
Step 3: Tuck the remaining side of the sheet under the mattress
Step 4: Pull the triangle back across the side of the mattress
Step 5: Tuck the remaining sheet into the edge of the bed, creating a neat diagonal fold on the corner.
Step 6: Replace doona over top of sheet.Step 7: Wonder why exactly you carried out steps 1-5, given that step 6 hides all previous handiwork.
Do you hospital corner your beds?
14 comments:
Yes I do!! Girl Guides taught me and I love them!
The kids will be taught this forgotten art by hook or by crook.
Will's duvet at school has to be pulled tight enough that a coin will bounce - so there are still some rules attached to bed making at boarding school!
aaaah, boarding school.
We were issued with the two flat sheets at the beginning of term. Each week the top sheet was moved to the bottom and we were issued with ONE new sheet per week (for the top). Like Alison, doonas soon overtook quilts and blankets.
I am a fanatical hospital corner girl and have tried to teach this to my children. However, they have discovered that, because I put the NEW sheets on their bed each week, if they are careful they won't disturb the hospital corners I've done and therefore only have to pull up the sheets every morning. They don't bother to tuck in the sides which really offends my bed-making eye.
I loved this post.
I sruggle to get Gilligan to MAKE the bed each day, let alone get corners done. BUT - I will continue with his domestic education and introduce this, you will be pleased to read !
I was an air cadet and many hours were spent perfecting hospital corners...beat digging trenches with the army cadets though.
When I did officer training in the defence force we also had to make the bed that way - with a cover pulled so tight you could bounce a coin on it.
I certainly don't make the bed to the same standard these days.
Yes I'm a 'hospital corner' girl. Like Blue Mountain Mary, I was taught by the Girl Guide Leader who was a Doctor. I can never make a bed without doing the proper corners. I'm surprised I hadn't instilled this in you before you went off to boarding school! Perhaps the solution to the girls and their bed making would be to send them off to boarding school :)
Oh, yes...I certainly learnt the art of the hospital corner at home first. It was the quilt folding and side-flipping ritual I gained a respect for at boarding school!
Megan...there must have been a boarding school linen manual - we had the same system. We were also issued with two sheets at the start of each term - then on 'linen-change day' you took the bottom sheet off the bed, remade it with the top sheet now on the bottom, and then exhanged the old bottom sheet, the pillowcase and your towel for fresh ones.
I've always wondered exactly what hospital corners were. Thanks for the demo. Now I know. :) Obviously I don't use hospital corners (given I had no idea what they actually were) but I do make the bed EVERY morning and make sure it's all tucked in nicely. It's my gift to me to be able to get into a freshly made bed come night-time. I'm yet to succeed in instilling this in my children but I'm working on it. Not that I'm fussy with their sheets - as long as the bed looks reasonable and not all hurriedly tossed back and forgotten about.
*LOVE* hospital corners.
I like to be tucked in so tight I can't breathe. Unfortunately other half likes the bed loose and sloppy.
hmmm - I wonder what this all says about our sex life ? ;)
I used to do hospital corners. My mum was a nurse and obsessed with neatness. We never did have doona's, so it was sheets, blankets and quilts all the way at my place.
Then I met my husband and through him my mother in law. My amazing mother in law introduced me to the doona, even better, was the doona with no need for a top sheet. Woo! I love it, simply pull up doona over bed and it is made.
I've always changed the sheets weekly so now I just do a quick doona cover change and we are good.
Love it. God bless my mother in law and her more practical approach to busy life.
First of all I must pay homage to the inventor of the fitted bottom sheet. I love that you never have to chase it around the bed.
I do hospital corner my side of the top sheet. Can't say what my Pete does on his side of the bed. That's his business!
I am a huge hospital corners girl. I was actually introduced to the delights of the HC by the husband.
I've mentioned before how he likes things just *so*, here's another example.
I think I might be the onnly non-hospital corner girl! I actually thought I WAS doing them (I'd read about them you see) but I was working with a squared off tuck rather than a triangulated one. Thanks for the tutorial though!
I like a neatly made bed though, and apparently I'm the only person in the house who does.
I trained as a nurse in the late 60's, so hospital corners were, and still are, always adhered to....but also: pillows should be placed with the open end facing away fromn the door......rationale: it looks tidy when visitors come! I still do that at home as well like a well conditioned robot!!
YES! Finally, someone else in the world who turns the open end of the pillow case to the middle of the bed/away from the door!
Post a Comment