quick and easy bed skirt

I have been wanting to make us a bed skirt for a long time. In Texas, we just had a white sheet spread over the cinderblocks that held up our bed and provided a place for all of our food storage. It was totally cheap and functional and I didn't hate it at all, but when we used certain quilts or comforters on the bed, you could still see the box springs above the white sheet and that felt pretty tacky.

I came up with a great plan for solving the problem, but then we decided to move and to get our new mattress set. And we no longer need to keep our food storage under our bed, since we have a full basement in our house. I guess I could have just bought a bed skirt, but I still thought my original idea was pretty awesome and wanted to try it out.

My idea was this: I wanted to use the flat sheet of a set I found and loved at Ross a while back. Unfortunately, our Ross doesn't believe in letting you actually feel the sheets you might be purchasing--they use gray packing tape over the zipper of the sheet bag to prevent pillowcase theft (why else would they feel the need to tape it closed?)--and I discovered too late that this sheet set was 100% polyester. The fitted sheet could not stay put on the bed and the flat sheet would wrap itself around you like a python. For a guy like Dave, who sleeps like he's swimming, this was a nightmare. I thought the flat sheet would make a perfect bed skirt, with a few modifications.

First, I measured the distance from the top of the box springs to the floor. With the bed frame and the thickness of our box springs, it came out to 16 1/2 inches. I then used my trusty pinking shears and cut a strip from either side of the flat sheet 17 inches wide, so I could use the hem to run along the floor. Then I measured how wide our queen mattress is--60 inches--and found that the bottom of the flat sheet, once it had had two strips of 17 inches each cut off, was 59 inches wide. Perfect for running along the foot of the box springs, and it was already hemmed.

I pulled the bed away from the wall and used sticky-backed velcro (I swear, this is just a coincidince, this much velcro in this short space of time) to attach the strips of sheet to the box springs. I started at the head of the bed and wrapped the sheet around the corner about 4 inches, so when the bed is pushed up to the wall, it looks like it goes continuously around.
















Once a piece of velcro was attached to the box springs, I lined up the sheet so it hung smoothly and just skimmed the floor, then removed the paper that covered the stickiness and pressed on the sheet. It was actually a really quick process.





























When I got to the bottom corner, I wrapped it fairly loosely with the same strip and just kept velcroing until the strip ran out.




















I used a piece of velcro at the top and bottom of the box springs at that point to make sure that it would stay tight on the bed. Then I switched to the other side of the bed and repeated the process.













 


I ended up with an open stretch of box springs at the foot of the bed about 2 feet wide.

I used velcro higher up on the box springs and attached my shorter piece across the foot of the bed. It overlapped with plenty to spare and the "seam" lines up about an inch inside of each corner--exactly what I was hoping for. It's barely noticable that the pattern is running opposite ways because of the way I cut the sheet so I wouldn't have to do any sewing.
















I know it seems a little silly, sticking velcro onto my brand new box springs, but I figured that in the event I want to change bed skirt fabric, or if we go back to having the bed on cinderblocks for more food storage, it will be a small matter to just cut new, wider strips for the bed skirt, and I can just use more sticky velcro to attach it. 

This was such a fast project. It took me 2 hours, from ironing the sheet before I cut it to re-making the bed once I was done and required NO sewing. Perfect for a pregnant girl who needs to take a break every 2 hours or so!

I love the way it turned out. Our bed is SO comfortable and Dave and I are both really loving it. Definitely a worthy investment. I hope to have the rest of our bedroom decorated soon, but you might have to wait a little while. Dave built me some picture frames and we're having a bit of difficulty finding someone to put glass in them. It will be worth it though. I can't wait!