How to Make a Bed Like a Hotel

Here’s how to make a bed, as cozy as a hotel, with affordable, easy pieces! For this bedroom style, I use a duvet cover, throw blanket, sleeping pillows, throw pillows, and decorative pillows to create a white, fluffy, perfect bed!

We spend many hours of our lives, sleeping in our bed so we might as well make it an enjoyable space to crawl in to at night!

 

Jump to:

• Why You’ll Love Using This Process to Make the Bed
• How to Make a Bed Like a Professional
• How to Make a Bed Look Luxurious
• Start with the Sheets
• What is a Duvet Cover?
• How to Put on a Duvet Cover
• Where to Put Sleeping Pillows
• How to Style Decorative Shams
• How to Style an Accent Blanket on the Bed
• How to Use Accent Pillows
• Expert Tips and FAQ’s
• Comments

Why You’ll Love Using This Process to Make the Bed

Making the bed is one of my least favorite things to do. I often think,

We’re just getting back in the bed tonight… why make it?

But when you have an easy way to make a bed beautiful, it’s not something to dread each morning!

And now, instead of rushing to shut the bedroom door when guests unexpectedly drop by, it’s one less thing to worry about and helps you feel like you have more ofa. tidy home!

👉🏻 This process of making the bed is easy, affordable and the colors are easy to match just about any room!

How to Make a Bed Like a Professional

If you’re decorating your master bedroom, styling a bed for staging a home, or making a bed that’s photo-worthy for a home tour, here are my favorite tips for styling a bed like a professional!

• Keep it simple – Sometimes less is more. Whether that’s less patterns, colors or the amount of items you put on the bed. I prefer more pillows than some may, and it’s completely ok to use less than what you see here. “Keeping it simple” for me, means using mostly whites, so I don’t have to worry about matching and coordinating colors.
• Think about “texture” instead of colors – A bed decorated in the same texture is completely fine, however, adding a bit of different textures (like using a cable knit blanket or pillow) helps add depth to a bed and adds a little character without overwhelming it and making it look too busy.
• Using all white – By using one color (or similar shades of the color white), helps a bed look “clean”. This is why more and more hotels have started using all white on their beds so guests don’t question if a bed is clean or not. They can easily see that there are no stains! Plus, when using all white, you can bleach the comforter, duvet, sheets, etc. safely!

How to Make a Bed Look Luxurious

For me, a luxurious bed includes beautiful pillows, and has a clean, sleek look to it! To achieve this look, I use a white fitted sheet, white top sheet, a duvet cover, decorative pillows and down comforters instead of a patterned, colorful comforter.

The white bedding reminds me of staying in a luxurious hotel, with white, crisp bed linens! I’ve been decorating my bed with white linens for years! See my older post of how I styled our bed a few years ago.

Start with the Sheets

The first thing I do is place the sheets on the bed. We’re pretty picky about our bed sheets. We don’t want them too hot, love crisp sheets, and we don’t want them to pull up around the corners of the mattress as we turn at night. It’s easy to get tangled up in bunched-up sheets, which can cause a restless night’s sleep.

Right now, we’re using and LOVING our Purple sheets that we got with our Purple mattress. They stretch, stay around the corners and feel like a soft t-shirt material but are not hot at night! It’s like magic! (But you don’t have to have a Purple mattress to use their sheets!)

When you find a set of sheets that you like, place those on the bed first in this order:

1. Fitted Sheet – or sometimes called a “bottom sheet”, make sure the fitted sheet is placed on top of the mattress and mattress protector (if using one), and that it’s snug so that it completely covers the corner of the mattress. Then, tuck the sheet under the corner of the mattress to help add that security to the sheet, so it’s less like to pop up in the middle of the night.
2. Top Sheet – Lay the top sheet on top of the fitted sheet so that it covers the entire mattress, and tuck the corners of the sheet in to the sides of the bed, and foot of the bed, then gently pulling the top of the flat sheet up to the top of the bed to stretch it out, making sure it doesn’t come out of the end of the bed.

👉🏻 Get Purple sheets like we use here!

What is a Duvet Cover?

A duvet cover is simply a thin blanket that usually has a zipper or a line of buttons, at an opening, to allow you to insert a thicker blanket inside that will help make it a fluffy bed linen, cover a comforter that you may want to protect, or simply disguise the color of a blanket you no longer want to use.
(Be cautious: depending on the duvet cover you use, you may be able to see the comforter through the duvet. This is why I recommend a white down comforter!)

Why would I want to use a duvet instead of a comforter?

I like to use a duvet so it can easily be washed, without having to wash a whole comforter all of the time. Sometimes when washing a comforter, the “filling” or “stuffing” can take a long time to dry.

So instead of washing a comforter each week during my laundry routine, I can simply remove the duvet cover and wash that much quicker and more often, than washing a whole comforter.

How to Put on a Duvet Cover

As you’ll see in the video I’ve shared in this post, I have finally figured out the easiest way to fill a duvet cover!

Here’s the step by step process of how I put a duvet cover on my bed:

1. Important Step: If your duvet is brand new, it can be packaged up, causing it to have deep creases. You’ll want to remove creases and wrinkles before putting it on your bed. So washing/drying and ironing or steaming may be necessary! A wrinkled duvet can really make it look like a messy bed.
2. Once your duvet cover is ready, turn it inside out and lay it flat on your bed or on a flat space big enough for it to stretch out, like the floor.
3. Place the comforter (or comforters – I use two down comforters) evenly on top of the duvet cover.
4. Optional: connect the comforter to the duvet cover. Some duvet covers come with ties on the corners so you can secure the comforter inside of the duvet without it moving around while you sleep. If your duvet cover does not come with ties, you may prefer to get duvet padded clips that work REALLY well at holding the comforter in place.
5. Once the comforter is secure, simply turn the duvet cover inside out, which will then make the comforter go inside of the duvet as needed!
6. Place the duvet on the bed, preferably with the “closed” opening at the head of the bed.

Inserting a comforter in to a duvet cover with the above process, makes it so much easier than trying to insert a comforter in to a duvet, by shoving it inside the duvet without turning it inside out.

Where to Put Sleeping Pillows

Make sure your sleeping pillows have pillow cases. Then, the next step is to put the sleeping pillows against the wall or headboard, placing them straight up, to set the tone for the rest of the bed pillows.

You’ll want pillows all of the pillows to sit as straight-up as they can, instead of leaning back so you can see all of the pillows when you’re looking at the bed, instead of just the bottoms. This is key to all of those beautiful beds you see in magazines or online.

👉🏻 These are the king size sleeping pillows in the photos

How to Style Decorative Shams

Euro Shams: Next, to hide the sleeping pillows (because let’s face it…sometimes they’re not the prettiest after sleeping on them every night) I place 3 Euro shams in front of those. I use 3 because my bed is a California King. If you have a queen size bed, you may only need two.

TIP: I use 28×28 Euro pillows with 26×26 Euro shams to really fill out the look of the pillow!

👉🏻 These are the Euro Shams you see in the photos.

👉🏻 These are the Euro pillows inside of the shams.

Pillow Shams: Next, I place the pillow shams that came with my duvet cover, in front of the Euro shams.

How to Style an Accent Blanket on the Bed

To add a gentle pop of color to my neutral bed linens, and to add some extra warmth for a little extra layer of comfort, having an extra blanket can also help give a good night’s sleep during the winter months.

Depending on how big your blanket is, (I use a king-size for our California king bed) fold the blanket in to thirds or fourths, creating a narrow fold, and drape it at the foot of your bed. Sometimes I’ll change this up and lay it diagonal, across the bed or I’ll place it evenly across the foot of the bed.

How to Use Accent Pillows

Final step: If you desire some color, extra pillows tend to be an easy and affordable way to change things up, decorate, and add that pop of color, so you don’t have to buy and replace a whole new comforter or sheet set, just because you want to change the look! (i.e. adding holiday pillows, spring colors, winter colors, etc. to help change your room’s theme, without breaking the bank.)

But, to keep all of the bed linens neutral, I use different shades of white accent pillows and even textured accent pillows.

1. Square Pillows: Ideally, centering 2 square decorative pillows up against the shams helps narrow the pillows, creating a great base for the final touches (the lumbar pillow).
2. Lumbar pillow: Lastly, placing a smaller lumbar pillow in the middle of the two square pillows, gives the bed a focal point and the perfect finishing touches!

👉🏻 These are the square decorative pillows you see in the photos.

Expert Tips and FAQ’s

• You don’t have to have a headboard or bed frame to have a beautiful bed. Actually, if you don’t have a headboard, you can easily create the effect that you do have one, by using the Euro shams I mentioned above!
• Do you have to have a bed skirt? No! Especially if you have a bed frame like mine, where it has beautiful side panels. However, even if your bed doesn’t have “walls” or pretty panels, you can pull the duvet or comforter down to hide the bed rails that you don’t want to show off.
• I like to use 2 down comforters inside of a duvet cover to give it that extra “weighted” feel while we sleep but to also give it that “fluffy” look like you see on professionally styled beds.
• I use 28×28 Euro pillows with 26×26 Euro shams to really fill out the look of the pillow!
• The bed frame you see in this post is from Wayfair and we LOVE it! It was affordable and there are no box springs required!
• No matter how beautiful your bed is, it’s a good idea to have a comfortable mattress. Make sure you have a quality mattress to sleep on for a good night’s sleep.

I hope you found this very helpful! If you’re like me, after decorating your bed like a hotel, you’ll find that you spend a little extra time in bed, which may or may not be a good thing.