DD1 has a set of white bedding, as well as white sheers. The sheers got extremely dirty living in downtown San Francisco.
She worked for Shabby Chic and the trick is to wash whites in the machine with OxyClean. She buys the powder in a bucket.

This is an interesting post...I would love to do white bedding but afraid of getting it dirty...I ordered an "ivory" colored quilt from Overstock and love the style but not sold 100% on the color...It looks vintage which is great but almost borders dingy looking...

But not having any luck finding the same style quilt but in a white...Well I did but it's like $250. ++

I would think in a quest bedroom, it would be pretty safe though if it's not getting use everday.

I have all white bedding in my master and have not found it difficult to keep clean. We have two pups, but they are not allowed on the bed. We don't have small children either, so I don't know if my experience is any help in answering your questions. I love mine!

With regular usage it can get a little dingy, but for a guest room I agree it would be fine. The problem w/regular usage in our house was sort of unexpected--DD2 (age 11) has a white comforter w/purple and blue dots from Pottery Barn, and we sit on top of it together every night to read. After a few months I noticed a subtle grubbiness about where my feet rest--it was from my ever so slightly dirty heels! (I wear sandals and flip flops all the time.) Whoops! So now I try to wear socks or slippers when I sit w/her, and that has taken care of the problem for us.

I have white sheets and a white blanket on our bed. After dealing with a sick dog for 3 weeks I can say that it cleans up beautifully with a little bleach. Thankfully our dog is on the mend now :o) Those midnight wash-a-thons were getting old fast! LOL
~Des

I've had a white-on-white MBR for at least 8 years now and love it. I have a cream colored matlasse comforter, with a darker cream/tan crochet throw folded at the bottom (to use for naps, etc), coordinating shams, etc.
I wash it when needed, but we never allow the dogs on the bed, so we didn't have to contend with their dirt . . . just ours. Matlasses are incredibly easy to wash whenever needed and they always come out beautifully. BTW, I also use Oxyclean laundry booster when I wash mine, too. That stuff is amazing!
Anyhoo, I love the look of a soft white bedroom. Ours looks cool during the warm months (like now), but cozy and warm during the cold months. Our furniture is a warm medium fruitwood and our floor are brick, which helps balance the white (cream,actually) bedding and walls. I love our cozy, romantic MBR like this.
Lynn

Both my DS and DD have all white bedding and I haven't had an issue keeping them clean and bright with regular washing. I second the Oxy recommendation.

I have white linen slipcovers for my dining chairs the one that gets used regularly was starting to look dingy. It wasn't very noticable unless you looked closely though.

They're prewashed but I took them to the drycleaners so I wouldn't have to press them. Just hours after I put the covers back on the chair my friend's little dog decided to use one as a fire hydrant and made a mess on the skirt!

It took awhile but I was able to get the stain out with several hand washings of Oxy and a vinegar/water mixture. I think it was easier to clean because it was white, since I didn't need to worry about the detergent discoloring the fabric.

One of them also had a little spot of blood from a cut finger - ewww!. I was able to get it out using a q-tip dipped in hydrogen peroxide and then rinsing with water.

White bedding is beautiful, but you are right to give it some thought first, because it can be a little more work, but may be worth it! The attached link may help.

Here is a link that might be useful: White Themed Bed Linen

I've had white bedding for 20+ years. No dogs, but two cats and two (now grown)boys. And for YEARS the only television was in our bedroom...so lots of tv watching went on in there. And more than a little snacking. (Sesame Street was always accompanied by dry cheerios and a sippy cup of water...)

I just washed the duvet cover as needed. I had two, and they were both 100% cotton... never got dingy looking. Hot water+oxyclean+ line-drying in the sun can wash away a multitude of sins!

I, too love white bedding. I currently have a white down alternative comforter and I recently purchased brown sheets and shams with pattern. I have light brown walls with white matelasse curtains and a folded white matelasse coverlet at the end of my bed. White streamlines everything in my bedroom and makes it inviting. Go for it.

We have white bed linens. A top quilt which is white with a very thin black embroidered scroll. A white embossed cotton underlay, a white comforter and white matching shams for the pillows. Under it all are white sheets. And I've punctuated it with black euro pillows. We use this set in the spring and summer and I swap the quilt out for a wine coloured one with ochre sheets in the fall and winter.

I find that the most difficult part of this set to keep sharp and bright are the sheets for obvious reasons. I think if you want to live with the scheme but not be a slave to the laundry you need to have a lot of sheets in the rotation, like a hotel.

But then I always think it's a little funny that people shy away from white because if the cleaning involved. Clearly it's more about appearances then actual cleanliness as dark colours are just as dirty but you can't see it. Better to know what you're dealing with I say.

Thank you so much everyone! I think I'm going to try it out and see how it goes! I'm first going to test it in my guest room and determine from there if the master would be able to handle it. I love oxiclean for many purposes! Good to know it works well on linens. Girlville, I love the last part b/c it is so true, the dirt is there one way or another !

Good heavens if white bedding looks dirty...it IS dirty! Wash it in good hot water with oxy clean or good old Clorox....how many times have you actually had beddingw ear out before it gets faded and dingy. better to bleach it and keep it clean and white than a print.
I have a white down comforter and white matlesse shams on my bed, and the dog sleeps there. The laundro-mat with the big tub and dryer and a lot of oxyclean keeps it sparkling.
I much prefer white table cloths for ease of keeping clean, because when they ger stained with red wine of BBQ sauce I can bleach them...unlike the pale blue no iron cloth that has a permenant very faint gravy stain.
Linda C

Your genetics can play a role as well. Some people seem to have especially dingy-making body oils no matter how often they wash. Bleach and Oxy can only do so much. If you have this genetic curse you will be buying new white sheets every four months. Better to go with dark navy or charcoal grey sheets.

Some people do gave more body boil than others although everyone has it. Sheets that turn dingy or yellow is caused from poor laundry practices, if white sheets turn dingy from oils so do the colors they just arnt as noticable. Yes as much as you don't want to hear it, bedding that looks dingy is dirty. This is almost always caused from incorrect water temperature and detergent. The oils that rub off your head and body require hot water to remove, and a good detergent. Keep white sheets brilliantly white by changing them at least weekly, wash in hottest water you can and use a whitening detergent like Tide with Bleach powder or Persil Pearls. Your white sheets will stay white, look, and smell lovely.

IMHO, if there is something you are worried may get dirty, make it white and washable. It is the easiest thing to get clean because if you get a stain you can treat it with anything you want. Not so with any other colors. I have three kids a dogs and lots of guests. Almost all of our bedding, duvets, etc. and all of our sheets and towels (and a lot of our slipcovered furniture) is white.

Before I had dogs I had white bedding and I loved it. Everything was easily washable- which was good because it was washed with some frequency. I don't think it works with pets unless they really don't go into that room much. My current dogs love to sleep below the window in the living room so if I wanted to go with white now I probably could.

Just keep a wide lint roller on the night stand.lol

When I was a little girl, most of our bedding was white. I remember my Mom taking a HUGE pot, boil water there, add cornstarch, and put all the bedding there..then standing there for an hour(or what seemed like an hour to me), mixing and turning it from time to time, as it was some soup.

The bedding would come out squeaky clean and very crispy.

But I feel like I worked on keeping it clean enough just from watching the process so many times))

So no..I'm fine with prints and colors.

I know nowadays it's all easier, I also have a lot of white towels (my husband's preference)...nope, still fine with prints and colors))

Ah..one of my first random jobs was working as a cleaning girl(I'd say "lady" but I was eighteen and looked twelve)..the lady of the house had 5 storied villa (I usually cleaned only three floors though as the other two were rarely used), and she also had me washing the dishes, ironing, etc. (Hate ironing. Since then. Used to love it before))

So once she gave me this huge bucket, several white table cloths, and a big bottle of bleach, and told me to hand wash them.

You haven't seen me but I never looked like anybody capable of the task)) I don't know what she was thinking to herself, but within half an hour or so my fingers started bleeding. So she saved both me and her laundry by telling me I can stop and go to do something else.

That short experience also probably added to my love of prints and colors..))

I have a white down comforter we have used for years. I wash it twice a year. I used to have to take it to a laundromat for that, but now have a washer big enough to take it.

I think it is fine. Not many people see my master bedroom though. I do have a quilt I put over the bed sometimes.

I have white sheets, and in the summer use a white pique blanket cover as a spread. I also have a dog who sleeps with me between the white pillows. The secret is to always buy 100% cotton white sheets -poly can get dingy in time,. And as others have said, wash with as hot water as your machine allows. If there is a stain, Biz or OxyClean or bleach will make fast work of it but I only rarely have to use this.

Recently, my daughter brought over some pillow shams that needed mending - her cleaning woman is determined to stuff two kings sheets into one sham and rips then at the hemstitching. I mended them but noticed they were a bit dingy and had an oily smell. I soaked the overnight in OxyClean and they came out beautifully. She then told me that the cleaning woman washes them in cold water to "save energy". It does not get them clean!

i also like white bath towels - do easy to get rid of any stain. Remember, until about 50 years ago, ALL sheets were white and people did just fine with them! BTW, my daughter uses white sheets on her two boy's beds - always has.

I really like my white duvet, but the kids are rarely on it and the pets even less frequently so. Someone up thread noticed the bedding getting a little dingy from bare feet. We've found that baby wipes are handy for wiping down feet before bed. : )

Yes, if you go with white, make sure that you can use the hottest temperatures on it otherwise it won't stay white.

I am a spiller, so white has not been good to me. Even though my SO rarely brings me anything food-wise in bed, like wine or coffee, you can bet when he does, I have spilled it. I tried stain removers and it didn't work for me, must have been set in. No way am I getting up to strip the bed and treat stains on a Sunday, so that was probably the problem, lol! In a guest room it would be fab.

Interesting about whites needing hot water to stay bright. I use cold water for all my washing (I'm terrified by shrinkage), and my whites are bright. I'm pretty easy on my linens, no pets in the bed, no kids, washed frequently. I noticed my most used white sheets were looking a little yellow, after a couple of years of rotated use. A bit of bleach in the wash and they came out sparkling.

I also use cold water for my whites. All towels are white and linen sheets are, too. No problem with holding onto the sparkling white. If I do see yellowing at some point, good old-fashioned bluing will get rid if it.