do you like your bath towels, bed sheets, kitchen towels to all coordinate or does it not matter?
if your comforter is burgandy would you be ok with orange sheets? or if people gifted you kitchen towels that didn't coordinate with your kitchen decore would you use them? can your beach themed bathroom have a mismatch of hot pink towles and hunter green polka dot towels or would you invest in all earthy neautrals ??
christmas gifts have me wondering.
lol, thanks for the replies. I'll come clean. mil alternates sheets one year, bath towels the next. I have NEVER asked her for these but it makes her happy or makes her life easier or i don't know what, it is what it is. at first i was just happy to have anything as we were also following the early garage sale decore.
now we are in our dream house, mil is over all the time and knows what my bedroom comforter set looks like and what the bathroom walls are painted. and while she didn't buy orange or hunter green w polka dots she bought sheets this year that while pretty CLASHhorribly with what i have. I get the elecletic look, and would be fine if that is what it came off looking like, but it just doesn't NOT at ALL.
in the past i was able to return the hot pink towels that didn't go with my taupe and deep purple bath etc, but this year she must of hit a sale somewhere new and even if i could get it out of her with out being a jerk, i don't have the time to mess with returning stuff with no reciept.
i'm trying just to deal with it but because i have a hard time getting things to look PUT together my towels and my sheets are part of my decor. and when they look crappy i feel crappy, i think these are getting freecycled once i get my act together and can get some sheets i like.
I guess kitchen towels don't matter so much, but mine are a taupe strip and they are soooo stained and ugly, but still usable. I wouldn't care unless someone comes over and needs one then i get embarrassed.
sheilia I apologize for tossing around OCD i do realize it is real medical issue and i'm so sorry you and your hubs have to deal with it for real.
If I am having company I put out the matching stuff. I keep it back so that when company is over everything looks nice. I use the stuff that doesn't match up for every day use.
This way I am not putting out ruined stuff out and wishing I had nice stuff.
It's a miracle if the fitted sheet on my bed matches the flat, much less if the pillow cases all match the sheets. I honestly don't care. It's dark when I'm asleep, so I"m not looking at the bedclothes, and if I'm using the bed for sex, then the color scheme of the sheets is the last thing on my mind. And I have never had a man tell me, "Sorry, but I won't have sex in a bed with mismatched sheets."
The only towels hung in my bathroom are hand towels. We pull bath towels out of the linen closet when we shower.
I don't care about color or pattern of kitchen towels either.
:) Your question made me smile, after the last question posted.
My OCD with my linens has more to do with how they are folded. They all have to be folded in half, in half again, and then either in half again or thirds depending on the size of the towel. They all have to be stacked in the closet in a very precise, neat stack, all facing the same way. I am also a nazi about how sheets are folded.
HOWever, my comforter IS burgandy, and my sheets are either navy blue, white with blue pinstripes, or bright yellow.
My bathroom has a beach scene curtain, blue rugs, a rooster rug (mostly red) in front of the sink, and my towels are brown and yellow. (I was going for a beach theme, but my daughter wanted a rug with a rooster on it and my mom gave me some really nice towels. Oh well.)
My kitchen has any number of different towels...I buy them as I see one I like and none of them match.
My girls...well, their sheets don't match their bedspreads, which don't match their curtains, which don't match their rugs, etc...my whole house is pretty eclectic, I guess. :)
I'm in the 'it doesn't really matter to me' category. Our stuff tends to somewhat coordinate just by accident (colors in a wide variety of solid which look nice next to each other) and my sister in law gave us a set of tea towels which are all the same shade of turquoise blue, different patterns.
You should see our cupboards-- I have loads of funky, fun dishes which all fall into a 'spectrum' if you will, of color, tons of Desert Rose pattern along with other designs... it's all vintage,cobbled together and I love it. I'm sure my son will grow up wishing he had a parent who had a place setting for eight, where everything matches. I just think it's fun that you don't have to guess whose water glass is whose-- they're all cool and unique!
It matters deeply to me (visual freak, here)
.... Right up until someone throws up in the middle of the night & we need a sheet set.
.... Or my inlaws ce over and need towels. (Hot pink for YOU, stripes for YOU, Walrus for YOU).
.... Or I have 24 hours notice on sewing a costumes
.... Or someone needs a hot dish delivered to them and the durn thing IS hot.
That's what mismatching things are FOR. To differentiate between normal & emergency.
OH boy, if I had the money of course I would want them to all co-ordinate. But since I decorate in early garage sale, there really isn't a lot of chance to be perfect.
I saw the OCD heading. My exhusband is OCD. It is a very serious condition. He couldn't go into restaurants because of germs, he couldn't hang pictures on the wall because he thought they would cause a fire if they came into contact with electrical wires behind him. He couldn't leave the house for hours because he was checking, checking and checking. I am now greatly relieved to see that your heading is nothing as serious as that (and wait there's MORE) but I will tell more another time.
Whoever this is be it you or someone else, a great gift would be the
book The Boy Who wouldn't Stop Washing.
Hug
I am OK with them not matching but they do have to coordinate in some sense some way.
My bedroom has a more eclectic look and feel. I have a quilt that is turquoise and brown and burgundy and dark blue and hot pink on one side and (almost) neon yellow/green on the other side. It has a more 'modern hippy' type style and I have had it for about 11 years and when it rips I sew it back together with all different bright colored threads. I have a lot of hot pink candles and such that goes with it. But it works great.
I have purposefully picked similar strategies for my kids rooms. Each having the ability to support many colors. The boys' room can support almost all the colors and the girl's room can support most girl colors and patterns, like polka dots, stripes, flowers and moon and stars.
All our bedrooms look very 'put together'...which I love!
I am lucky enough to have the BEST MIL in the world who has excellent taste and she went to town 2 Christmas' ago and got me a HUGE (like fridge size) box of really good towels so currently all 3 of my bathrooms have matching towels that coordinate with each color theme.
~If the colors or patters or styles are WAY off it might bother me a wee bit and probably wouldn't use it in my bedroom....but if it's just a towel to be folded in my linen closet I am not even gonna care.
I would not be ok with orange sheets no matter what color my comforter was. All those colors and themes sound clownish. Go with white or off white for sheets and towels. You can't go wrong.
I like my sheets to match my quilt/comforter/room. They don't have to exactly match, but something complimentary at least. I only have one quilt that is on the bed all the time, but 3 sets of sheets. One is gold and doesn't truly match any of the colors in the quilt, but oh well. Not a big deal to me.
The kitchen towels? Hmmm... I used to match them. But anymore I just use whatever, because they are USED, not just for decoration.
In the bathroom, yes, I like to have a set of towels that coordinate and compliment the rest of the bathroom. These are the towels that I put out when we have guests (in the guest bathroom). I also have sets of towels that match for our bathroom, and for the kids' bathroom. But they aren't the ONLY towels we have or use.
Our bathroom is rather neutral, so I have several sets of towels... some lavendar, some pale sea foam, some brown, some cream. Any of them look fine. We also have a few odd towels from way back that we use. Who cares if they don't match, nobody sees them except us.
Kids' bathroom has sets of towels that coordinate with the wall/shower curtain. But also lots of everyday non-matching towels as well. They match with each other, but not necessarily the bathroom. My son uses towels like crazy, and I promise, at 14, he could not care less if they match anything. Same with daughter. They are for utility, not coordinating colors.
Do all of them match each other? Of course not. That would be plain ridiculous.
If someone gave me an odd color of towels, they would be used, but not put out for display or hung out for guests. I can't remember the last time anyone gifted me wth bed linens.... oh wait. Yes I can. My parents gave us a set of cream colored sheets. We put them on the guest bed for my parents. They are 50/50 blend sheets and I prefer the all cotton ones we already have thank you. I figure my parents must like them, since they have a set just like them at home, so I put them on the bed they use when they are here visiting.
I find sheets an odd gift anyway, unless you registered for some for your wedding and got them as a wedding gift. Otherwise.... kinda strange. And who gifts you with orange sheets?? That is just strange.
I definitely have to match. It would drive me crazy to have different colored towels or sheets.
It bothers me if sheets, comforters, towels don't match.
I don't think it's OCD though, I think it's taste.
I don't really use kitchen towels and no one ever see's my bedroom (although my sheets and comforter do match), bath towels I don't care too much if they all match or not. No one see's it except for us. I care more about the decor to go well together in the house and the color of the walls to match my stuff.
It doesn't bother me.
bed sheets for my bed and spare bedroom yes. Bathroom, kitchen, I don't care. If my bathroom was themed, I probably would want to coordinate at first but after awhile probably not.
I used to sell good linens and I purchased what I liked. 100%cotton..
Sometimes actual cotton, linen. For different seasons..
I do purchase 3 sets f the same towels so I can hang them when guest come over.. But we are spoiled about the quality. Since our bathroom is all white... We like to change out the colors... Often...remember, we have been married over 30 years, so we still have some sad looking towels that were wedding gifts.. They really need to into the rag box...but when we see beautiful towels (always marked down) sometimes I just have to have them.
I have many, probably too many bed linens.we love them .I have full beautiful sets all coordinated.. Since it is so warm down here, we really no longer use comforters we do not even own any...Instead we use just the duvets or blanket covers..
We are into vintage right now.. The problem is that they wear out faster..
My husband and daughter... Love quilts.. So we have tons of them too..
I love both parts of the spectrum.. Totally tailored bed linens..crisp and tidy... And crazy funky, all mixed up bed linens..like a hippy gypsy...
Re-gift! Someone can use those sheets or towels.
I really don't care what color my towels are. I like certain things to kind of match, but we use the blue penguin towels my aunt gave us because they are cute. Our main bathroom has pink tile and a pink tub and a pink toilet...have to kind of ignore the pink.
If you really hate them, either keep the hated ones as spare, donate them or freecycle them. IMO, I would rather have an ugly towel than nothing to stem the tide of milk at dinner that is threatening to roll off the table and saturate my carpet. My comforter is red and my sheets fit. Right now I'm not even sure what color they are.
