Super Size or High Profile?

Do you know how deep your mattress is? If you've bought a new one in the last 5 years or so chances are it's pretty deep. Up until recently mattresses had a fairly standard depth of between 8 to 11 inches. Not so much any more. With all the luxury introductions of the pillow top, double pillow top, super deluxe such and such we've seen the depth of mattresses increase up to 21 inches. Princess and the pea territory. Extra high and extra comfortable, there is nothing wrong with that at all. The problem starts when we try to find bedding to cover all that mattress. Sheets used to be a real problem but manufacturers had that one figured out quickly enough. Extra deep fitted sheets were available shortly after we figured out that the sky high mattresses were here to stay and now they are the norm. Over sized flat sheets are now fairly common as well. The one that has a lot of people stumped is the duvet and subsequently the duvet cover.

There is one fundamental reason why the duvet problem is less easily solved. Duvets are at their best when they sit completely on top of the bed while in use. They should envelope the sleeper and rest right at the edge of the mattress without hanging over. That allows them to provide optimal insulation and comfort. This means that the optimal size for a duvet is approximately 24 inches wider and 12 inches longer than the mattress. Which therefore means that an appropriately sized duvet is unlikely to fully cover the sides of a very deep mattress. When the duvet hangs over the sides of the mattress while in use air channels are formed on the sides of the sleeper or sleepers that can create cool drafts. Additionally if the duvet is so large that it hangs over the sides it has to potential to be disruptive to sleep as it places unnecessary weight on the body. This means that using a king size duvet on a queen bed, as is often recommended, compromises the function of the bedding in favour of aesthetics. Making the bed less comfortable in order to look good is a poor compromise. So that leaves us with the problem of finding a way to make bedding function properly and look good. Don't worry though, it's totally doable.

The best solution we've found to date isn't going with the next size up, or a super/jumbo size. It's keeping the appropriate duvet and going with a duvet cover that fits the existing duvet and has an extra flange of fabric to provide the right amount of coverage on the mattress. These are called High Profile duvet covers. Not all of our manufacturers are making them but quite a few are, St Geneve and Revelle included. They give the best of both worlds. A queen duvet goes on a queen bed and if the mattress is higher than 12 inches or so a high profile duvet cover is used to cover the difference. Easy.

I'm hoping that over the next couple of years the high profile will become more common and available in more styles. I'm a little worried that it won't gain in popularity with the manufacturers for sales related reasons. Most of the companies that make duvet covers also make duvets. If they don't adopt the high profile covers they may sell more duvet covers as well as duvets all in larger and more expensive sizes. Well, we can hope for the best right? And I'll keep telling the sales reps that I want them.

There is another option as well. It is always possible (and quite attractive) to cover extra deep mattresses by layering a coverlet or bedspread over your sheets and under the duvet cover. As coverlets are typically significantly larger than duvet covers you can easily layer them to hide just about anything. The photo to the side is of a queen size bed we have in the store right now. We somehow ended up with an extra mattress so decided to double up on on of the taller headboards. We used the Genevieve fitted queen sheet from Pine Cone Hill to cover the two mattresses and the flat sheet as a make shift bed skirt. Then we covered the whole thing with the Petite Trellis coverlet and topped it with a queen size duvet and cover also in Genevieve. If a queen coverlet can nicely cover two mattresses stacked on top of each other there is no reason at all to super size it up to king.

So don't fret. We've got options for you.