I have one fluffy down blanket. More blankets than that and my boyfriend winds up stealing some and I get stuck with the leftovers, and I'm never warm enough, and I wake up in the middle of the night and want to remake the bed so there's equal blanket dispersal (my bf loves when that happens). With one blanket, we tend to share better.

I like one fluffy pillow and one buckwheat pillow on my side of the bed, though I can handle only having one pillow.

We love our fluffy comforter--it's quick and easy to make the bed, it's very warm without much weight, and its bright red flannel cover is cheerful in the winter. I've tried the layers of quilts thing and all that stuff is too heavy and constricting. As for pillows, that preference is dictated by my back: I have to use a single, very flat pillow or my back kills me. I always had backaches when I traveled until I figured out to use a thin folded blanket as a pillow rather than the big thick pillows they give you.

One well made quilt, and no pillow... usually a cat on my chest or a dog on my feet. Hubby works days, I work nights, so we tend to drive each other nuts when we try to sleep together!

We have one fluffy down comforter. It takes about 5 seconds to make the bed in the morning and I'm so cozy at night.

I have a thin duvet (I like the versatility of switching out different duvet covers as my mood changes) and then pile on multiple thin blankets as the weather cools down. That way the duvet is thin enough to still be used on all but the hottest Chicago summer nights, and still serves well in the middle of winter. Best of all worlds!

Is there an option? I have two quilts AND a duvet. It's Canada, and it's January.

In the summer, though, I just have a quilt and bedspread. (The duvet is purely functional, not an aesthetic choice.)

i'm so glad this post is up! i am in the market for new bedding. i need to replace a wonderful but TOO MESSY duvet cover from cb2 that i currently have. am thinking doing bare comforter with a matelasse quilt over it so i can remove one layer in the summer. thoughts? suggestions? i just want my bed to look crisp and clean and cozy

Duvet. Because I live in northern Europe. I use a thin, light duvet in the summer and a thick, warm duvet in the winter (aka October-May).

Duvet cover must be white cotton or linen. I love it when they come straight from the rotary ironer. Pillow covers and sheets must also be white.

I don't like beds made with sheets and more sheets and blankets and whatever. Or rather, I suppose it's because the standard bed length is shorter in countries where sheet-sleeping prevails; there's no room for my feet. (I survive by untucking the sheets).

One heavy feather pillow, or two if they are very thin. I still haven't figured out what you are supposed to do with the other 200 pillows on American beds. I don't read in bed, I sit in the livingroom.

I think my preferences have always been the same. I prefer white linen for both practical and aesthetic reasons. My sleeping preferences and my aesthetic preferences get along just fine; my bed looks like a bed and that's perfectly alright.

I think your preference might have something to do with where you live. I bet a lot more people in the northeast prefer a big, fluffy down duvet. I love it in the winter, even though I have to open my window when it's 15 degrees out to get cold enough for it to be comfortable. But fall/spring in Texas I'm with you on the thinner blankets.

I use a soft, lightweight, quilted comforter and at least three pillows. My bedroom is on the second floor of my pseudo-townhouse apartment, so it stays fairly warm, even on the coldest days.

I have a year-round light down comforter with a cotton duvet in NYC. I love it, except that the comforter always seems to fall to the bottom of the duvet by morning. For that reason, I will buy something different when we upgrade to a king bed.

I have both quilts and duvets; I rotate, and have no set preferences. My main concern with bedding is that it fits into the washing machine so that I can clean it often myself. Everything has to be 100% cotton, though, and I never use anything filled with feathers or down because I am allergic. Oh, and I dislike bed skirts and warm colors on the bed. Not picky at all, right?!?!?!

I live in the northeast (and also used to live in Canada!) and my bf and I prefer layering - we have a thin cotton coverlet, which in the winter we top with a wool blanket, kind of the thickness of a Pendleton blanket, and then I often throw on a second, twin-sized wool blanket on my side, since I get colder. We both sweat like crazy under puffy comforters - they just don't breathe like wool and cotton. Personally, I love the heaviness of a nice wool blanket.

I'm with Anna Europe 100%. My biggest beddding pet peeve is tons of blankets & pillows. Keep it simple; one duvet per bed, one pillow per person.

When I lived in Russia and our heat went out for two weeks in the winter, I DID add two quilts on top of the duvet, but it was extremely cold and I don't plan on complicating dreamland with more than the basics ever again.

We use a duvet and a heavy cotton blanket (my favorite blanket of all time). In warm weather the blanket goes on the bottom and in cold weather we put the blanket on top of the duvet to keep in the warmth.

I work with kiddos with autism and they often like weighted blankets. I've realized that I really like the sensory input of a heavy blanket when I sleep.

I also don't like fluffy covers. They look ugly on bed in my opinion but as you said, it's a preference thing. I also prefer very thin pillows and only use one while sleeping. However, I like to keep a couple on bed during my before-sleeping-read session. :)

Chenille bedspreads.

Like Lisa(Montreal) said, Montreal gets cold, very cold.

We tend to need to cover up in exactly Adrienne Breaux's major pet peeve: a lush, plush, fluffy white down duvet. The way it sinks onto you after you get into bed, it's like a big warm hug!

I love, love, love our light and fluffy comforter! In addition to being gorgeous (and cheap, thanks to TJ Maxx), it's lightweight, but still keeps us toasty warm. We live in the South, so during the summer we sleep under just the comforter and flat sheet. In winter, I add a dual-control electric blanket because I'm always freezing and my husband is his own furnace.

We have a few extra pillows on the bed to prop ourselves up when we read at night, but I don't go for all those froo-froo frilly pillows and bolsters and whatnot. Full disclosure: I rarely make the bed (yes, I'm one of those), so why bother with 8 thousand million pillows that will just sit on the floor all day?

Fluffy or not, I don't care as long as its not too hot. I'm a very warm sleeper, and there is nothing worse then waking up in the middle of night feeling like I've been suddenly transported to an oven. So because of that, I tend to avoid down comforters (except right now, our furnace is out).

I HATE down pillows. I hate flat pillows. I have to have two big plush pillows in order to sleep – one for my head, one to snuggle with. For some reason, I sleep best with something in my arms. Pillow is best, but dog or fiancee will work, too :)

We use one big fluffly down comforter with duvet cover, plus a top and bottom sheet. Love the lightness of it sleeping and ease of making the bed. I do read in bed frequently, so have excess pillows, when I go to sleep i push a couple against the wall.

One lightweight down duvet. I can't imagine layers of blankets and quilts. I despise heavy covering.

If I could, I'd sleep in a Japanese futon on the floor. Thick heavy mattress, thick heavy "comforter," and a pillow full of beans. No other sheets or blankets.

My husband, however, would object. Plus I don't like sleeping on a futon on carpet, and our apartment is wall to wall carpet. :P

I like layers of light quilts and blankets and have slept that way as far back as I can remember. I'm a very warm sleeper and I tend to kick some off in the night, but I don't think I'd have it any other way.

Also, I can't sleep with more than one pillow.

I love multiple quilts on the bed. I feel that they are easy to launder often, which is essential, due to our allergies.

Bed peeves? Oh, there are lots!

But being European, I agree entirely with Anna Europe!

I can *only* sleep under a duvet -- the puffier and heavier the better. I grew up with satin-damask covered feather duvets from Europe; they do not get as hot, but are nice and cozy... can't get them anymore, not even in Europe, as everyone has switched over to down, or, gasp, wool duvets. I have tried wool duvets, and don't like them. And as for polyester-filled comforters... ugh. Now, I have thick down duvets custom made in Europe, and quite like them. Not as heavy and cozy as the original mix, not covered in the satin damask, but still lovely. The only non-down duvet I have ever liked is made by Duxiana, and am considering one for the guest room (given the feather allergies of my MIL). The wonderful thing about duvets is that if you ever find you are getting too warm, you just stick out a leg, pull it lower down your shoulder, etc. It's so easy to do in your sleep, you aren't even aware of it, and you never have bedding slide on the floor.

Hate, loathe, and despise with a passion sheets with thin blankets: not cozy, feel trapped, hate being tucked-in, and find supremely irritating how sheets and blankets tend to separate, and find myself waking up over and over to pull both sheet *and* blanket over my should when a change position. As for lots of quilts, it is too complicated -- they slide off, I just find it a pain.

In my house, the duvet and pillow covers are heavily starched white cotton damask (or linen). Hate over-decorated printed bedding. Apart from my damask, I love the Matteo Home and Due collections as well as Libeco Home linen.

Can't stand all the pillows and other "decorative items" so many North Americans put on their beds... I believe you shouldn't have to undress the bed in order to get in it, and fortunately, my husband dislikes that sort of clutter as much as I do. We don't even like a throw at the foot of the bed, as it seems pointless.

The image of the bed at the top of this post gives me the heebie-jeebies, and I would never willingly choose to sleep in it!

Bedding is something you should never skimp on. As an aside... I've actually heard from a friend of mine who is a dermatologist that women who use silk or satin pillow covers have less wrinkles because the cotton is not tugging at their skin at night.

I despise light bedding. I like to feel the weight of my blankets on top of me, so I always had down duvet with a blanket on top. As someone else mentioned though, it's got to do with the climate. I grew up in the cold, so that heavy blanket system worked very well. Now that I live somewhere hot, I miss my duvet, and would roast if I used anything heavy. This cold snap we've been having has forced the duvet out of the closet, and is especially wonderful since we don't have heaters, so the room is cold and the blankets are really warm: perfect!

Live in New England and turn off the heat at night entirely. Our all silk duvet is light, warm and cozy. I enclose it in a flannel duvet cover to keep it clean. The cover becomes the sheeting so no flat sheet is needed. So easy to make the bed, just straighten out the duvet & done. My husband who is usually warm & I who am usually cold both remain comfortable under the silk.
For pillows we each have one to sleep on, a long bolster at head of bed for propping against, and 2 square decorative pillows. Looks simple but dressed as well.

No bed clutter, please - I love it simple: one fluffy down duvet and one pillow, and in winter a cozy blanket underneath - I live in Canada people!
Esthetically speaking, I don't love it to much because it never looks flat, nice and tidy but I prefer comfort over estetics.

oh yes -- we like to sleep with the window open, and heat off during the night.

Don't ever bother coming to Europe then! We don't even know what sheets are, and everyone sleeps under think, down comforters. Year round.

A down comforter with duvet cover and no top sheet is my preference. I like to snuggle under it, and it's so easy to make the bed. Plus, I have a tendency to kick the flat sheet loose, so I would rather lose it altogether. In the summertime, I only use a blanket, placed loosely over the bed like a comforter. I have shaped memory foam pillows and two old down pillows that I use like a body pillow. They go back to the top of the bed when I wake up. Otherwise, I don't like to have any extra or decorative pillows.

I'm definitely in the thick comforter camp! And since I switched by young sons from piles of baby blankets to twin-size duvets, they have stopped waking up several times a night and calling for me to fix their blankets!
Psst - though it doesn't really seem that romantic, the Northern European thing of having a separate comforter for each person sharing a bed actually WORKS - no more middle of the night tug o' war - you can wrap the duvet around you like a sleeping bag, and never worry about who's hogging!

I used to be a comforter and fuzzy blanket kind of gal, but when my husband came into the picture we had to switch to a quilt and a sheet. He's warm all of the time, and that was too much heat for him. Now I have him to keep me warm at night :)

Spring, summer, and fall, I sleep with just the fitted sheet on the bottom and a lightweight feather duvet in a cotton cover on top.

In winter, I put my duvet in a flannel cover, and I pull out the fleece sheets. My fleece sheets are in my top five list of things I have ever bought. EVER! I absolutely love them. I'll also add a feather bed under the fitted sheet. And on really cold nights, I'll throw another blanket or quilt on top of the duvet. It has to be really cold for me to need it though.

I used to do the whole decorative pillow thing, but gave up on that a couple of years ago. Just can't be bothered with them.

One more note regarding aesthetics... my bedroom is upstairs now. My old place was quite small and the bedroom was right next to the kitchen and dining room. Guests used to see my bedroom frequently because coats were thrown on the bed, the door was open, etc. With the bedroom upstairs, it's rare for a guest to see it. So function became far more important than aesthetics. It still looks nice and neat, but I don't care if my color choices are a little outdated or if the duvet cover is looking a little bit tattered or worn.

One thick and fluffy duvet - and with a blanket beneath when it turns cold (which is almost always in San Francisco)

I need lots of layers--I pull them on and toss them off during the night, as my temperature needs seem to shift. My ex and I had a big fluffy comforter and it was so hot, even in winter! I'd much prefer the ease of just one layer for making the bed, but it just doesn't work for me - I really need the option of multiple layers.

I've had flannel sheets in the past and they were way too hot too - cozy initially on a chilly night, but in the end, too hot.

I live at the beach in California and I love my feather comforters with high thread count cotton duvet covers. In the winter I use two. They seem to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer, especially with my ultra thick high thread count cotton sheets. I sleep with tons of pillows because I like one to be there waiting for me when I need to turn over in a new direction. And to agree with everyone else who's mentioned this - making the bed is a breeze. I may not do my dishes every night but damned if my bed isn't made each morning.

I really don't like to have too many layers - it makes my feet/legs feel weighted down and I can't move! I'm a tosser and turner so I have to have the ability to move at night. I use a light-weight down comforter with a cotton duvet. In the winter I just add a light fleece throw on top for extra warmth. I have to have at least three pillows-one of which must be a feather pillow. I've always slept with that many and probably always will.

I've never liked the super poofy comforters...I just don't like the way they stick out off the sides of the bed! My grandma made us all quilts, and I requested that mine be thinner. We love ours, and it's even a little poofier than I'd like, but it's better than that one in the first photo. In the summer, I'll definitely go with lighter blankets.

I live in the Canadian prairies where most of the year is incredibly cold, and the summer is hot hot hot. This means a big duvet in fall-winter-spring, and a couple thin blankets in summer. Its the only way to survive.

Despite my attempts to dress up our bed, we always end up liking a simple arrangement best: mattress pad, fitted sheet, and one comforter (we have a puffy one for winter and thinner one for summer). No top sheet or duvet cover. Both comforters are washable.

We have two large square pillows for reading in bed, and two small buckwheat and wool pillows for sleeping.

i prefer sleeping under quilt & sheet, but quilts are so much more difficult (and expensive) to keep up... with multiple pets in the house, they get dirty, or torn, and you just simply have to replace them after a year or so. so this weekend we're actually switching to duvet, although i'm insisting on a light one - if i'm too hot when i sleep, i have nightmares!

(and i know this is SO hypocritical with the "expensive" note above, but i couldn't help myself - and had a friend bring over an orla kiely duvet cover from london!)

I have a thick duvet (goose feather) and it's the best investment in my comfort I could have made, living in an older postwar home on the Canadian prairies. In the summer when my bedroom can get as hot as 28C during a heat wave, with nothing else on the bed, it's nice and cool. Regularly fluffed up as the top layer over thick, jersey sheets and three or so blankets in the winter, I'm comfortable even when I let the house go down to 10C overnight. And the washable covers are vary handy in a home with three messy cats, one of whom has a chronic stomach condition. I didn't grow up with a proper duvet, but once I slept with a nice, goose feather one, there was no going back. The one I bought at the Boxing Day sale three years ago, has a 10 year replacement warrenty, but claims to last 20 or more years.

i cannot stand duvets. no matter what techniques i employ, the inserts are always bunching up inside, it always looks messy. prefer a coverlet here in florida. two when it gets below 60.

@Vab- Duvet clips keep your blanket from moving around. Best six dollars ever spent at Bed Bath & Beyond.

2 deflated comforters and a thin tapestry above that... if it gets cold we add a quilt to the pile. So my vote is for puffy!

I discovered this about myself this winter. Can't stand comforters. We just switched back to a thin quilt with a flat sheet underneath. Why did I take so long?
Now to get rid of a very nice duvet that doesn't really fit into the washer.

We always have organic cotton or bamboo sheets from Target on the bed, and they feel very cool and smooth. In the winter, we use a down comforter in a flannel duvet cover. We got pretentious and had it monogramed, but it's otherwise completely plain. Over that, we have a thin, reversible all-cotton quilted bedspread. In the summer, we put the comforter away and just use the bedspread. Our cats like to stomp about on the bed, and the bedspread keeps their claws from poking holes in the comforter, or in us. Everything that goes on our bed is as plain as possible, and in shades of bone, ivory, or black. It makes it look like we're neater than we are.

I use a feather pillow--I like that it compresses but provides some support. My husband prefers this really old polyfill one that is mushed completely flat and most of the fill has disintegrated. Our bedroom is in the above neutrals except for the light turquoise-blue walls, so I get tempted to toss a lumbar pillow in acid green on the bed, but I've stayed strong so far.

Big, puffy duvet. I have three. I love the puffiness and weight. It pretty much neutralizes the cold of the loft. No sweatiness, and if it heads that way, i just shed one or even two of them, but it's the most comfortable kind of cover I have ever had. Flat blankets/bedspreads just feel so threadbare. If it gets hot in the summer, I usually have a light fluffy duvet.

I hate fussing with a bunch of thin sheets and blankets, they always end up all crooked or tangled and have to get up in the middle of the night to straighten them out. I never sleep well in hotels for this reason.

What I like is a huge lofty down duvet. I imagine that I'm sleeping in a cloud. The loft of the down is the perfect temperature regulator. It's the only way my boyfriend and I can share the same blanket without him getting disgustingly sweaty and me shivering throughout the night.

I also prefer layered blankets. You don't see them under the top bed cover. Big puffy duvets create this layer of cold air around your body, so at first they're too cold and then they go immediately to boiling.

I'm surprised by all the posts of people who don't like duvets because they cause them to sweat.

I've lived with duvets my entire life, and have never sweat under them. My husband is a furnace, gives off tons of heat at night, and even he doesn't sweat under them. Maybe the people who sweat under duvets are using the wrong kind of duvet? Too much fill for their environment maybe?

I also think a lot of people who use duvets tend to turn the heat down at night. Maybe that is part of the issue?

I'm also with Anna Europe 100%. My big pet peeve is a tons of blankets & pillows. Keep it simple; one duvet per bed, one pillow per person.
I also like chenille bedspreads, found http://www.bonus.com/chenille_bedspread.html?sid=6

I can't sleep without the weight of a comforter and at least one blanket...

Two or three blankets and one or two comforters, please. In summer, a blanket and a comforter are enough but I do not understand all these one-comforter people that sounds horrible to me.

I hate comforters. They never lay right and they're always too warm, so you get this weird mix of drafty and sweaty.

I also hate satin sheets. And down pillows. And electric blankets.

Why do most bedding manufacturers not have orange as a color option? While it may not be the most popular choice, there are people out there who happen have orange as a part of their color scheme.

All I can seem to find is bedding with an orange coral design on it or part of a pattern with other colors. Me no likey.

Kerry Cassill, John Robshaw...someone pleasse start rocking Florida's Best hue!!

I feel like I am constantly picking up tiny white feathers that have escaped from my duvet. :\ It feels very not hypoallergenic, if you know what I mean. I guess I need a better quality duvet?

I guess I'm a "beddie": like a foodie being a lover of food, I am a lover of beds and all that goes with them. I adore slipping between a thick comforter and crisp cotton sheet, preferably both a clean, freshly-bleached white. But sliding into a plaid flannel sheet set piled high with multi-colored, multi-textured blankets and quilts makes me equally happy, so I guess I'm one of the few who's on both sides of this fence :)

Pet peeves: getting into nasty cold smooth sheets. So, flannel sheets and an electric blanket. With dual controls, since there are cold-sleepers, and there are hot-sleepers, and they always marry each other.

I also dislike the look of beds with a hundred twee little pillows piled up on them, but hey, if you like it, and don't mind excavating through them to get into bed, throwing them onto the floor, then picking them all up again in the morning, go for it.

This is all reminding me that the sheets need to be changed. 'Bye.