I only cover with a blanket, no sheet.
In the summer, a thin blanket on my feet.
Exactly. This is actually why I have never once loaded our current dishwasher. Two or three dishwashers ago, I was told one too many times that I did it wrong. Same thing with cooking - too many complaints about technique. After that, he got smart.
It’s a method that can’t be beat!
Why is there NO mention of pillows?
I air out the bed. By flipping back the bed covers.
Later flip the bedcovers back over everything pillows too.
I need new pillows.
Neither. Pattern-side up, but folded down over the top several inches of the blanket. The seam has to be against the sleeper!
Any other way is Chaos.
We have solid white sheets. There isn’t a top or a bottom. Problem solved. They have subtle white stripes woven in so i can tell which way is up/down. But there’s no finished it unfinished side.
(But the sheet needs to fold over the edge of the blanket. Sheets are easy to wash. Blankets are hard to wash. Ergo, the sheet should protect the blanket from your sweat and grime.)
If you have to dry the dishes
And you drop one on the floor - -
Maybe they won’t let you
Dry the dishes anymore.
—Shel Silverstein
Finished side down, no folding, sheets and all blankets up to the headboard.
Are you my sister?
We do the same. Taught as children. Shake out those sheets and plump the pillows.
I’m not married to the fold down thing at the top of the blankies. I push the sheet under the pillows and throw the duvet over.
Sometimes I even fool myself, the bed is properly made.
Good point here. Also, I just generally think the sheet fabric is more comfortable against my neck/chin/cheek than the blanket is.
That’s me too. (The latter bit, not the former).
With the slight addendum that the blanket is positioned to within a couple inches of the head of the mattress, so there’s often a tradeoff having enough sheet to fold back, and having enough sheet to tuck in at the foot of the bed. As griped in a mini-rant recently, sheets are made about 20% undersized versus modern mattress sizes and adequate selvage for tuckage on all sides. Cheap-ass bastards.
My deeply seated pet peeve, and I’m glaring at hotel management all over this benighted country as I type, is beds made where the blanket stops 18"-24" short of the head of the mattress. Of course the shorter they arranged the blankets, the more beautifully and tautly they made the bed. I have shredded so many beds and remade them while exhausted just to try to get 7 hours sleep then go back to work. Gahh!
There isn’t nearly enough sheet to do any weirdo folding stuff. So properly tucked into the foot, and finished side up/no folding. Now where I am it never gets cold enough to need 3 layers so I just have fitted sheet, flat sheet, and comforter (OR blanket but not both).
Another vote for finished side up/no folding.
I have found that newer sheets are longer, to accommodate the thicker mattresses that have become common. You might try shopping again, and explicitly looking at the dimensions of the sheets.
I’ve been known to deal with that by buying a top sheet and blanket one size larger than the actual bed. This is also helpful if you share the bed with a cover hog. 
Having both been to boarding school (strict High Anglican) and been a Silver Service waiter in the poshest part of London, the Millennium Hotel on Sloane St, I can fold a sheet.
I can fold a sheet like a ninja doing origami. I can fold a fitted sheet, the highest level of skill in my dojo.
I still do not make my bed until laundry day. Perhaps I am wasting my superpower?
The wife is right. However, and additional solution is to buy a California King with individual adjustment controls and you each make your bed how you want it.
We have never used top sheets. There’s a washable cover over the mattress, a fitted sheet over that and a duvet on top. We have a winter and a summer duvet and several duvet covers.
Well, wait, what’s the definition of “making the bed” that folks in this thread are talking about? if it’s changing the sheets with all that implies of stripping the bedding, laying down and tucking in the new set, that’s one thing. But I’d call that changing the bed.
For me, at least, “making the bed” daily means straightening the pillows, flinging the covers up over all, and straightening them. Done!
People don’t use bedspreads anymore. I can still see my Mothers beds with the pillows hidden under the top of the spread and all tucked in.