Happy Friday! This week has brought us some goergeous weather and it’s reminding us that spring is just around the corner. We love how spring is full of bright colors, beautiful flowers, and fresh air; and we want to incorporate all of that into our homes. Check out our favorite five links this week on how to add color and personality to any room.
- Create elegance in any area of your house by adding some emerald green painted furniture.
- Make any room feel warm by adding fun hints of yellow throughout.
- Add color to your home without having to paint using these colorful decorating tips.
- Look at these stunning rooms and learn how you can turn pink into a vibrantly sophisticated color!
- Stimulate your senses with stylish pops of color throughout your home.
We asked our lovely graphic designer Alison Citron to do a room roundup for us. She chose to feature both our Valencia White Duvet Set and our White Embroidered Sheet Set. On her blog Field Notes From my Couch she writes about some of her favorite things including hand-lettering, interior design, and trying to knit and watch TV at the same time; as well as what it’s like to run her own business! We love how she created a very calm and elegant room using our all white bedding and added just a hint of color with a few fun room accessories. We would absolutely love to come home to this chic and sophisticated room everyday!
You can get the full look here: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7
We hope you enjoyed our first educational video exploring thread count. We’ve interviewed a few experts to expand on this topic and provide additional perspective. Dr. Ning Pan, a Textiles and Clothing professor at the University of California at Davis, describes thread count as “a convenient way to describe yarn thickness.” By adding each warp (the vertical threads) with each weft (the horizontal threads) per square inch, one can reveal the thread count.
Dr. Pan informed us that there are many ways to get around increasing thread count without really increasing the fineness or hand of the linen. We know, and Dr. Pan confirms, that the most thread that can realistically be woven into one square inch is 400. Customers should be wary of products boasting a higher number for this reason: Other manufactures can place multiple threads into the fabric that are not actually woven in. This process increases the thread count but does not increase the overall hand or fineness. In order for a manufacturer to add more threads per square inch, the threads themselves need to be thinner, which decreases the quality and longevity of your linen.
Julian Tomchin, who has worked in various positions from senior vice president and fashion director for home at Bloomingdale’s to senior vice president of creative services for home product development at Macy’s, also gives us insight into what we would like to call, the 1,000 thread count myth. According to his 2009 NY Times interview, some linens manufacturers use two or three-ply yarns and use simple multiplication to arrive at their thread count number. Next time you are on the hunt for 800 thread count sheets, remember this post and remember that anything above 400 is usually the result of “creative counting”, as Tomchin puts it.
As consumers, we know that you want a soft feel and something that won’t disintegrate, tear or fray quickly. Thanks to Dr. Pan and Julian Tomchin, we know that higher thread count doesn’t necessarily correspond with a higher quality or softer feeling linen. We hope their expertise helps you make your future purchasing decisions simple.
If you ARE in the market for high-quality, yet affordable linens, you should check out our 400 thread count sheets collection!
This week we have been daydreaming a lot about what our dream closet would look like, where our dream vacation would take us, and what fun and quirky things we would add to our dream home. There just aren’t enough hours in the day to see all the beautiful inspiration that’s all over the web. Lucky for us, we found other people who also spend their days dreaming about the perfect room, or a perfect home. This week we present to you Our Favorite Five Links for Inspired Daydreaming. Enjoy, be inspired, and maybe even drool a little; we sure did!
- This list of drop dead gorgeous homes is making us all a little jealous.
- The entryway is where guests get their first impressions of your home, but with these entry ways we are afraid the guests would never go home.
- We would definitely all feel like queens if we woke up every morning in this stunning castle.
- Here are just a few closets that we would probably never leave if they were ours.
- Sometimes envisioning your dream home is less about the big picture and more about focusing on the details.
Note: This article was written for those who like using flat sheets. For those who prefer the look of the perfectly made bed and don’t want the hassle of the flat sheet, check out our signature duvet cover. Our bedding stylist, Celeste, gives a pretty amazing demonstration here!
That feeling you get when you crawl into a nicely made bed at the end of the evening and cuddle up into the sheets is priceless. However, that means that you must make your bed in the morning, something most of us aren’t too keen on doing. These few easy steps will get you into a routine of making your bed every morning and on your way to a more enjoyable evening.
- START FRESH: Initially you’ll want to take off all of the sheets and start fresh. Once you’ve done this, you can easily maintain it.
- PROTECT YOUR MATTRESS: First, put your mattress pad on your mattress – this will provide protection to your mattress and also allergens.
- PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT WITH THESE “HOSPITAL CORNERS”: Place your fitted sheet over the mattress and smooth it out. Make sure the corners of the sheet line up with the corners of the mattress. Take your flat sheet on top of your fitted sheet and create “hospital” corners. This is the foundation of a well-made bed and with practice it’ll come easier. Starting at the foot of your bed, take the end of your sheet and tuck it between the mattress and the box spring making sure to not just bunch it under the mattress. Go to the head of your bed and repeat this step making sure the sheet is pulled taught. Go back to the foot of the bed and choose any corner to start your first “hospital” corner. Grab the sheet draping from the side and place one finger on top of the corner, lifting the sheet with the other hand. Tuck this drape under the mattress. Hold the corner in place and bring the sheet over forming a 45-degree angle. Tuck the rest of the side of the sheet under the mattress all the way to the head of the bed. Repeat this for the bottom two corners.
- THEN COMES THE DUVET: Spread your duvet over your sheets and smooth it out. Whether to tuck in the sides or leave them hanging is up to you. Fold down the sheet at the head of the bed over your duvet a few inches to give a more decorative feel.
- HOW MANY PILLOWS? LOTS OF PILLOWS: Put your pillow protectors and then pillowcases on your pillows and start placing your pillows on your bed. For a more decorative look place 3 Euro pillows against the headboard, your sleeping pillows next, then 2 decorative shams, and finally an accent pillow.
Once you’ve made your bed with the “hospital” corners, it’s easy to maintain throughout the week. A quick an easy way to make your bed in less than a minute is while still laying in it. Once you wake up sit up in your bed and just straighten everything out. Once everything is nice and straight, fold down the top sheet and blanket down from underneath. When you get out of bed tuck the sides of the sheet back underneath the mattress.
This week we present to you a fun room roundup done by Beth Pearlman of CHIC + GLAMOROUS, an inspirational blog devoted to stylish living. We love Beth’s stylish inspirations, particularly her many musings on the latest trends in fashion and home decor.
Beth chose our Linden Gray bordered duvet, a classic all-white bed with a touch of natural modernity, and paired it with some beautiful accessories to make a modern and elegant room with a touch of wild. We love how the combination of bold prints paired with a touch of metallic makes the Linden Gray really stand out.
Get the look here: 1/2/3/4/5/6
Yesterday, we announced our partnership with violence services agency and non-profit, Safe Horizon. Headquartered in NYC, Safe Horizon is the largest victims’ services agency in the United States, helping 250,000 affected by domestic violence and abuse move from crisis to confidence each year.
We are proud to partner with Safe Horizon and join their efforts by giving the gift of a safe and comfortable night’s sleep. 1.3 million women are victims of physical abuse by an intimate partner each year in the U.S and we know that not everyone has a safe place to sleep. That is why for every customer that purchases a Crane & Canopy duvet cover and sham set, we will donate a complete set (duvet cover, shams and comforter) to a women leaving Safe Horizon’s domestic violence shelter program.
We hope you will join our cause and give domestic violence victims comfort and courage as they rebuild their lives and plan for a future free from violence.
When you buy, we give. It’s beautifully simple.
» Learn more
This month, we launched our Linden bedding and our scalloped embroidered sheets in this season’s hottest shade of coral. We we cannot get enough of this color, especially when it reminds us that Spring is nearing. Enjoy our mood board!
Source (Left to Right): 1/2/3/4/5/6
Happy Friday! With a long weekend right in front of us, we are ready to tackle our house chores. A top chore people often put off completing is updating their wallpaper. This week, we share with you how to easily put up your own wallpaper, as well as some great crafts to do with all those leftover scraps! In the mood for something less traditional? We also have you covered with some really fun, out of the ordinary ways to dress up your walls. Enjoy!
- Take down your wallpaper effortlessly with this simple step-by-step guide.
- We love this fun and creative list of DIY projects using your leftover wallpaper scraps!
- Decorate your wall with book pages and show off your favorite books year round.
- With this wallpaper, you will never run out of spaces to hang your favorite pictures.
- The idea of hanging your favorite fabric on the walls has never been easier with this DIY fabric wallpaper!
It has been a while since we posted a designer room round-up and today, we are we back with a bang! I am pleased to introduce you to the blogger and interior design extraordinaire, Courtney Lake. After working several years in the tech industry, he launched his own interior design firm, along with his blog, Courtney Out Loud, where we promise that with one quick read you will be hooked and ready to redecorate!
Courtney designed this room with our Linden Gray bordered duvet and blended this classic all-white bed with a touch of natural modernity. We love how he let our bordered flange become the theme of this room and you can never go wrong with a gray, white and yellow color combination.
Thank you for guest designing with us, Courtney!
Get this look here: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8
Wishing you a Happy Valentine’s Day filled with lots of x’s and o’s!
