I remember ironing my fathers fatiques when I was a teen -- starch was added to the spray bottle, I sprayed the daylights out of the fabric and rolled it up. A few minutes later I'd unroll one at a time and iron each, and had no wrinkles. If it wasn't done properly an enlisted man could get called on the carpet for it. Nowadays, I'd spray with some water (maybe starch added to the water isn't a bad idea, but I use spray starch now!), let it sit for a minute or two and iron.
I make my own ironing board covers - used sheets at yard sales are great for this. A small amount of batting underneath it works quite well. My ironing board is an odd shape - it came over from England, so regular covers won't work, and I don't like those anyway. My iron has ALWAYS gotten a great deal of use over the past 40 years (I'm on my 3rd iron now), so I'm pretty picky about how I set it all up.
As far as the dimensions for a quilt - I measure the bed, and how far I want it to hang. Our bed is up pretty high (due to a really thick mattress), and I like it to hang long all the way around as my DH ends up with most of the covers, and what he doesn't take, the pups lay on....not much for me if I don't have it extra long on the sides! I also like it extra long on the end so it matches the sides as you can see it coming into the room. I have a bedskirt, but like the look of an extra wide & long quilt on a bed. I don't like tucking in pillows - its a hassle. I have pillow shams and place our pillows behind those when I make up the bed every morning. It's all preferences.