Guide to Hotel HousekeepingPalmer, Mary E. (Mary Elizabeth)
General
Guide to Hotel Housekeeping
Palmer, Mary E. (Mary Elizabeth)
Home economics; Hotels
Sometimes the chambermaid will ask the laundryman for a pair of sheets
to make up a sample-room, as the guest wants to receive a customer. The
laundryman replies: "Well, just as soon as the machinery starts again,
you may have them." There has been a breakdown; the belt is off; or
something has gone wrong, and they have sent for the engineer to fix it.
Then the housekeeper must go to some unoccupied room and strip the bed
and use the linen for making up the bed in the sample-room, while the
guest walks the floor and frets over the delay. Much time is saved if
the hotel is supplied with plenty of linen.
Sheets that cover only two-thirds of the mattress do not add to the
cheerfulness and comfort of the guests. Many well grounded complaints
are entered about this. Special laws have been enacted in some states,
within the last year, regarding the length of sheets.
Occasionally a guest finds it expedient to make his bed over, if he
would have any comfort. The maid has put the double fold of the blanket
to the top; it is a warm night, yet he fears to throw the blanket
off--he might take cold. So he concludes to make his own bed, putting
the single fold to the top, that he may throw some of it back.
HOW A BED IS MADE.
Good bed-making is the one trait par excellence in all good chambermaid
work. To make a bed artistically is one important feature, and to make
it so that the guest may rest comfortably is another, and, finally, just
how is the best way to make a bed is a question worthy of consideration.
In our big country of America, the traveler from Maine to California
sees many styles of bed-making. In New Orleans is seen the picturesque
canopy of pure white mosquito-netting tucked in neatly all around. In
Kansas City is seen the snowy spreads plaited half way to the foot with
numerous little folds. In New York is seen the pure linen hemstitched
sheets, turned back with a single fold.
To begin to make a bed, first, the mattress should be turned. The bottom
sheet should then be tucked in carefully by raising the mattress with
one hand and smoothing the sheet down with the other. The large hems
should always be at the head, in order that no one may be compelled to
lay his face where some one's feet have been. After the bottom sheet
has been tucked in at the head, it should be tightly drawn and tucked in
at the foot in the same way. Sheets should be long enough to tuck in one
foot at the head and one at the bottom. If it is a brass bed, the sheets
should be left to hang down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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