We just bought a new bed and mattress set, and this is a queen instead of a full (two grown adults sharing a full-size bed is silly. No room! No room!)
So, we’re needing completely new linens, which means decisions. Bed skirt or none? Comforter? Bedspread? Allergenic covers on the mattress? The foundation? Mattress pad? Satin? Flannel? Silk? Cotton?
So, tell me all about your bed.
King-size. In winter sheets, thermal blanket, blanket, comforter/bedspread. In summer just sheets and comforter. No ruffles or skirts. Mattress pad. Split box springs. Headboard but no footboard. 4 pillows. All cotton.
My suggestion is to get the highest thread count possible for your sheets. Don’t skimp here. Find the ones that are just barely fitting into your budget, then get the ones 2 levels better. You’ll thank me. Check Amazon for some good deals.
I’ll second silenus on the high thread count. They feel so much better and last a lot longer. Well, I guess part of that depends on how active you are upon the sheets. 
I have a king size bed with a comforter, ruffle, matching pillow shams and matching curtains. Hmmm… ya know, if you all were not already convinced I’m gay, that sentence ought to do it. Anyways, I found all this in one big package. It was a couple hundred bucks on sale, but I figure it’ll last me a long time. Or until I get tired of it, cause, well, there is that gay thing and I just never know when it will rear its ugly head and pronounce everything tired and outdated.
He’s absolutly correct. At least 600.
I have a full size bed, it’s just me & the cat. I have a featherbed mattress on it. In the summer, cotton or jersey sheets, in winter, flannel sheets. And I have 4 pillows, 2 for under my head and 2 I use as a body pillow.
Full size (I sleep alone). Antique headboard and footboard which I purchased when I was 16. I have a bed skirt so that I can store things unseen under the bed. Summer or Winter I have a bottom sheet, 2 pillows and my fluffy down comforter. Nothing else. I LOVE my bed.
I’ve got a queen pillow-top with a beautiful wrought-iron head-and-footboard, which would be perfect for tying someone to, if I ever shared the damn thing with anybody but my cats.
I’m a sucker for jersey sheets, and I have a couple sets I bought at Bed Bath and Beyond that are heavenly. They’re not like a t-shirt, they’re like that t-shirt you’ve had since the dawn of time that’s so soft you want to just wrap yourself up in it and snuggle. I love these sheets. I’ve experimented with satin, flannel, and all sorts of other kinds, but I keep comin’ back to the jersey.
I have several different comforters/quilts/duvets/coverlets. I recommend those ones from Ikea where you buy the comforter (which they have so many varieties of it’s frightening) and then the cover that goes over it–it’s like getting a new comforter every time you change it.
The most important thing is this: don’t skimp on your pillows. Whether you like thin or fat, one or two, feather or foam, your pillows are your friends. I can handle an uncomfortable bed when I’m sleeping in a strange place for the night, but gods forbid I get a crappy pillow.
We’re just about like silenus, except we have a California king. We splurged four years ago and got a top-of-the-line extra firm mattress, and my back has been thanking me for it ever since. Worth every penney.
I don’t like having all the dust ruffles and duvets and decorator pillows and whatnot. It’s just more stuff to have to wash or find room for when not in use. I second silenus’s recommendation on getting the very best sheets you can afford. They’ll last longer and be more comfortable. Get all cotton, not polyester, and you won’t sweat as much on them. Be sure to check if your mattress needs a deep pocket fitted sheet, and get a deeper pocket than it recommends, because it’ll probably shrink a bit and then it’ll be a bitch to try to pull it onto the mattress.
Oh, I love my bed. And I never get to talk about it!
It’s a full-size pillow-top, super soft and not too bouncy. Less than a year old. I have a body pillow, a standard pillow, and a king size. My body pillow case is super sleek and soft; it’s heaven rubbing against it. I have a huge white half-down comforter, also new, and a thin yet warm blanket for the not-so-cold nights.
I have several sheet sets; one flannel, one purple, one ‘tangelo’ and one ‘scuba’. I am perfectly happy with 300-count. I’m sure I’d love a higher one, but I can’t afford it.
My bed is right up by the window so I can see the moon at night, and the sun shines in on the weekends when I’m still curled up at noon. No headboard because it’d be in the way and no footboard because I’m always banging my shins on them.
Queen for two of us. Hubby is 6’3" and I’m fat, but we fit fine. 
Reversible mattress pad, smooth for summer, fleece for winter. Sheets, comforter, no skirt.
About high count sheets, be careful. I just bought a set of 800 count cotton sheets that wrinkled and pilled with the first washing. They’re worse than flannels for pilling. I got them at overstock.com. They do have good prices, but now, I’m not sure I’d buy any more there.
I’m with **silenus ** and others on the sheets (not like that! :eek: ). Get the highest thread count cotton sheets you can afford. I have a set of 800 thread count, a set of 1200 thread count, and 2 sets of 1000 thread count, and I have to say that I use to 1000 the most often. The 800 are nice for winter, as they wear to a flannel-like softness, and the 1200 are so tightly woven that they’re really only comfortable in the warmest weather, but the 1000 are always juuuuuuuust right.
My bed is a queen, and I mostly sleep alone. (I really suffer when I have a guest. I couldn’t possibly consider living with someone else without a king-size bed.) All my sheets are white, and I change my duvets and accessories seasonally. Crisp light blue cotton for the spring and summer, red silk for fall, and midnight blue velvet for winter. Lots of pillows. Everything about my bed is lush and decadent, like a bed should be.
Full-size mattress and box spring I bought for $300 in 1994 (my first apartment, and this was big bux!) No bed, just the cheapie metal frame. Black bed skirt my mom made out of a white sheet with black where it shows. Mattress cover from Martha Stewart. 
Economical sheet sets that struck me with their fun color or pattern. No flannel on or around my face, but on the fitted sheet OK. Quilt by Mom in the winter, with electric blanket or a couple of non-electric ones.
I am intrigued by the bed-in-the-bag idea though. They have such gorgeous ones in neutral taupes and different textures. Very classy.
Just don’t buy handmade quilts in the store, please!
Consumer Reports reviewed high thread-count sheets fairly recently. I’ve had some success by washing them more frequently–seems to cut down on the pilling.
Queen-sized Tempur-Pedic, Tempur-Pedic pillows, 400-thread-count cotton sheets, goosedown comforter in a cotton duvet. Throw a few cats on top and you’re all set.
Got one of those foam beds . Space age technology and all. Wife claims my snoring immediately stopped. I did not snore. The beagles will spend their afternoons on it.
It came with foam pillows too. Wish they were fatter.I can sleep on anythimg,floor included.
Water bed died 2 yrs ago. Had the tube type. Prefer the foam.
My bed is an antique that my grandmother bought at auction ages ago. I don’t know how old it really is. It has the holes in the sides where the ropes used to be strung to hold the mattress. At some point, it got converted to hold a spring mattress, but that must have been 50+ years ago–my mom slept in it when she was growing up, and it still has the same mattress. It’s somewhere between a twin and full in size, so a new mattress would have to be custom made. It’s old and creaky and kind of unstable, but I like it.
ick. horrible rented student accomodation bed. double, but with waterproof mattress. dont know what the landlord thinks i’m going to be getting up to to need a waterproof mattress. anyway its way uncomfortable unless i put a duvet on top of it and sleep on that. i miss my bed at my parents house. 4 pillows, and at least 6 pointlessly decorative cushiony things.
Teehee I have the same thing except mine only cost $30 Teehee
My husband works in a furniture store. Carry on.
My bed is a full size for just me and the beagle. It is an antique spool type bed that my dad slept in growing up, new pillowtop mattress and box springs though. It only has half of the foot board cause my grandma sawed the top part off when my dad got too tall to fit. I only have 100 percent cotton sheets in 400 count or better. I have no problem with pilling on mine. I have a indigo blue cotton quilt for in the summer, it is a little too heavy but I haven’t found a lighter one that I like. In the winter I have a very heavy down comforter in a denim duvet with a matching denim dust ruffle topped with a white eyelet second dust ruffle. I have white eyelet pillow shams that are on pillows that are only for show along with 6 scatter pillows in other types of white lace. My pillows I sleep on are very decadent hypoallergenic down substutute pillows. About 50.00 each. White lacy curtains and blue velvet chairs in the conversation area of my bedroom. ( my bedroom is 12 x 25). I keep my house very cold in the winter and if the temperature really drops, I have another feather comforter and a couple of quilts. I alsop have a quilt made by my grandma that is whie with shades of blue cross stitch that I intend to someday hang on the wall. I also want to hang some other antique quilts on the wall as well, oughta muffle the noise form outside nicely.
I’m a frugal person by nature, training, and necessity, but we have an expensive bed, and expensive sheets, because if you can’t sleep properly, you can’t do anything else. Queen-sized pillow-top pocket coil mattress, mismatched boxspring (got a good discount because they’re mismatched, but you never notice it), high thread-count sheets, a memory-foam pillow for me and a buckwheat pillow for my husband (he’s a very hot man - he sleeps much better on the buckwheat pillow). We also have hypoallergenic covers on the pillows, because I don’t want them to get full of mites (I read/heard somewhere that pillows get heavier and heavier because of all the mites in them. Ewww.)
The best sheets I have right now that feel absolutely heavenly are from, of all places, Wal*Mart. Go figure.
I wouldn’t blame Overstock-- blame the specific manufacturer. I have purchased a set of 1000 thread count sheets and an 800 thread count comforter cover and neither have pilled one bit.
In fact, come to think of it, I’ve never had a set of high thread count sheets which have done that. Weird. Maybe yours were “duds” and you should contact the company for a replacement/refund.
My advice:
As to dust ruffles. Unless the underside of your bed is pretty, I think they’re a must. Hide that ugly frame and the dust bunnies that accumulate.
A down comforter. Hubby and I have one we use year-round. It was 600 thread count (though I can’t imagine that matters since there’s a comforter cover over it) and it’s as soft as a cloud. It keeps us snuggly warm in the winter, but strangely enough, doesn’t make us too hot in the summer.
Good pillows. You really ought to look at your pillows critically. You may not notice when you’re tired at night how flat or lumpy they are. Get yourself a new set to go with your new bed.
The only complaints I have about my bed is the size. We have a queen, and with three dogs, me and my Hubby, it gets really crowded.
I have a very nice king size comforter which goes between me and the floor.
I’m too cheap to buy a bed.