COVID has prevented many of us from traveling as freely and as widely as we would like. We are getting out there, but not with our previous abandon and not to as many places as we would like. The way things are going, those luxury hotels we’d love to be visiting may just have to wait awhile. In the meantime, however, there’s no reason why you can’t make your home feel more like one of these wonderful destinations. There are a few easy changes, that I will share with you in two parts… make these changes… and your house will feel like a stay at The Ritz… every single day.
“A hotel should relieve travelers of their insecurity and loneliness. It should make them feel warm and cozy.”
Bill Kimpton
1. Choose Wonderful Towels
One of the most noticeable things at a great hotel are the towels – they are high quality, fluffy, lush and absorbent; they are most often white because they are easy to clean. To give your home this same luxe feeling, choose towels like a hotel does: usually the softest, most absorbent and durable towels are denser and have more fabric in them. Look for towels that meet the standard for hotel towels which is 400-600 GSM (grams per square meter). Hotel towels are also most often 100% cotton (Turkish or Egyptian) and washed in warm, not hot, water. Higher GSM towels get softer and more absorbent the more they are washed. One thing to NEVER do with great towels is to use fabric softener when washing them. Hotels find that, over time, fabric softeners build up a layer of chemicals on top of the towel fibers: this greatly decreases the absorbency of towels over time. So if you want hotel worthy towels, fabric softener is a no-no. And speaking of towels, if you want an even more luxe experience, consider adding a towel warming rack to your primary bathrooms. It’s a yummy extra that really ups your comfort game. For more information on great towels, check out this article in Good Housekeeping on the Top 11 Bath Towels You Can Buy Right Now.
2. Choose Quality Sheets
Another thing that makes the best hotels the best hotels are high quality sheets – it’s what makes their beds stand out and what makes you feel wonderful climbing into them. So what do hotels do when it comes to sheets that you can emulate? Great hotels use 100% cotton, high thread count (or number of threads per inch) sheets. They generally have thread counts between 300 to 500 because this is ideal for soft, durable, and breathable bed sheets. The other, even-more-important characteristic of hotel sheets is a long staple count. The staple length of cotton sheets plays an even larger role in the sheet quality than the thread count. The staple length is the length of the fibers used in the threads. Long-staple and extra-long staple fibers are soft and supple, while short-staple fibers are rough and crisp. The best hotels use long-staple sheets since they’re long-lasting and plush.
Other tricks to make your sheets more luxurious include:
- Make Your Bed Daily: It removes wrinkles from your sheets and keeps them crisp. Making your bed daily keeps your sheets smooth and your bedroom looking fresh.
- Wash Your Sheets Weekly with Fabric Softener: It’s the opposite of towels – to give your home the hotel feel, wash your sheets weekly with fabric softener to soften them and minimize wrinkles, remove odors, and reduce static.
3. Choose A Quality Mattress
One of the most important factors for a comfortable, hotel-like experience at home is a great mattress. Hotels often use hybrid and memory foam mattresses for their durability and pressure-relieving capabilities. I am fully onboard with this advice. When I bought my condo, I purchased a SweetNight Memory Foam mattress. It’s insanely comfortable and one of the best purchases I made for my new home. (I’ve included a special sale code below that you can click on to get their best price).
Hotel mattresses are usually soft or medium, firmness-wise. However, you should choose the correct firmness for your sleeping position for optimal comfort and healthy spinal support:
- Back sleepers: Medium to medium-firm
- Side sleepers: Medium to soft
- Stomach sleepers: Medium-firm to firm
- Combo sleepers: Medium to medium-firm
If your mattress isn’t old enough to replace, or getting a new mattress is out of budget, consider getting a feather mattress topper. They’re less expensive than a new mattress but still an upgrade on your current mattress.
A Final Thought…
Your home can be as luxurious as a 4-star hotel – so why not? We will have more on this topic next week… in the meantime have fun out there, my friends… and make sure to have fun.
And Now For Some Music Before We Go…
“No matter how nice a hotel is, it’s not home.”
Bill Kreutzmann
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