Guide To Folding Bed Sheets: Folding Fitted & Flat Sheets

Sure, folding bed sheets might sound like a menial task. But how many times have you lost patience and scrunched them into a ball or shoved a slightly uneven stack into your cupboard?

If all it takes is following a few simple steps to make what should be easy, actually easy, it’s got to be worth a try. We run through everything you need to know about making folding bed sheets hassle-free…

Preparation matters

You might not think there’s much to prep for, but making sure you have enough space to do the folding will make your life a whole lot easier. There’s nothing more annoying than trying to open out and wrestle with sheets when your elbows are bumping against bits of furniture or you’re short of surface area.

Stand by anything about wide enough to hold your sheets. A bed, countertop or desk should do the trick. And before you get started, make sure the surface is clean – you don’t want to be dealing with stained sheets too.

How do you fold a flat sheet?

The trusty flat sheet may not be easiest to put on your bed, but it’s certainly simple to fold back up again. It doesn’t have any sewn elastic with tight corners, which makes for a far more co-operative canvas to work with.

1.  First up, hold the sheet by two corners on one of the shorter sides, and hold it up high so it hangs down lengthwise. Make sure the top side is facing you.
2. Slide your hands down the sheet so the top edge falls towards you, until it meets the bottom edge, and is folded in half
3. Repeat this again using the same method ­until you have a panel of material.
4. Fold the rectangle from left to right and repeat until you have a smaller, tight rectangle

With any of these steps, you might want to use a surface, like a corner table, to help smooth out any creases in between folds.

How do you fold a fitted sheet?

Now this might not be such a walk in the park, as those elastic edges make ‘perfect’ folding slightly harder. But once you get the hang of it, it should still take under 60 seconds, promise.

1. Hold the sheet by putting your hands in the corners, with the long side spanning across you, and the top side of fabric facing you
2. Next up, take one corner – with your hand still in it – and tuck it into the other. Repeat the tuck on the opposite side and your sheet is miraculously folded in half
3. Hands in corners again, repeat this once more so all four corners are folded into each other. It might feel a bit like origami, but that’s not a bad skill to have..
4. Pop your sheet on your large flat surface and notice a C-shape in the material (where the elastic part is now folded down to, leaving the new corners of your folded bed sheet straight).
5. Fold it in thirds going inwards, ensuring any wrinkles are smoothed as you do so. Repeat by folding in thirds from the other direction and then flip over

Voila – you now know how to fold a fitted bed sheet without the slightest temptation to scrunch it up.

Stacking your sheets

Try to make sure you fold your fitted sheets and flat sheets into roughly the same size as each other. This way, they’ll still look neat when stacked on top of each other. To make this work, try to categorise different-sized sheets together. A queen or a king sheet, for example, will fold easier into a rectangle than a single bed sheet might.

Once you’ve done that with your whole set, you can stack them all, starting with the largest at the bottom and working your way to the smallest. Not only will your sheets be folded to perfection, but your cupboards will look impressive too.

Now you know how to fold up a fitted sheet and flat sheet effortlessly, why not check out our range of bed sheets, so you can choose the right ones for you?