Cushion Talk: Accessorize Your Living Room in a Jiffy

It’s incredible how even the smallest and seemingly unimportant item can play a big part in the overall look of a place. Designers and homeowners often use small or big decorative elements such as vases, candles, rugs, curtains, etc. to achieve a certain effect that they are after in a room. Whether you are redecorating your entire home, designing a living room from scratch, or simply feeling like you want to make a change, cushions are one of the best and easiest ways to influence the décor.

From a designer point of view, cushions offer endless opportunities for decorating, which is why they have become so popular amongst both homeowners and designers. And, because your choice of cushions, also called scatter cushions, throw cushions, throw pillows, etc, as well as the way you arrange them can make a huge difference, it’s important to choose the right colours, designs, sizes, etc.

Buying things for your living room can be very difficult, and time-consuming because there are so many things you need to consider. However, when you are buying cushions, there is only one thing you need to worry about, and that is style. Most importantly, changing the cushions is one of the simplest, fastest and inexpensive ways to transform any room. And when it comes to the living room, you can play with colours, textures, prints, patterns, the number of cushions, the sizes and the arrangement to change the aesthetics of the entire space.

And while decorating with cushions isn’t the hardest task, you still need to take a few things into consideration before you buy a coastal cushion to add a beachy feel to your living room. The key like with most things in interior design is balance. This refers to how many cushions you get, their look, as well as how you place them on your sitting furniture.

Choose the Right Colour

There are many ways to combine cushions. One of the first things to determine, however, is the colour you want to go for. Cushions are a great decorative element that can help you embellish the room, and they can help you add liveliness and especially for sofas in light and neutral colours. The best way to take advantage of this decorative power of cushions, you should take the existing décor into account, and choose by following that and the colour palette. The colour palette refers to the three colours that are most present in the room.

Once you know this, the goal is to create a balance and choose cushions with a colour that pulls the different tones of the rest of the room together. You can opt for a couple of cushions with the solid colour you’ve chosen and a couple with patterns. Another very common way to decorate with cushions is to choose two colours. The classic is of course playing with black and white, as they can look great with almost any colour.

If you want to achieve a beachy vibe, you can go for Hamptons cushions with coastal patterns with tones of blue on a white background and mix them with solid blue or white cushions. Or you can go for two solid colours, and accent the one you want to add to your room for balance.

Play with Patterns

When it comes to choosing the patterns, it all depends on what you want to achieve. Besides, your goal should be to choose something that fits your overall style – the wall art, the decorations, the furniture, etc. Naturally, you also need to make sure that the different prints you combine work well together. For this, you should choose a different pattern in similar tones, that look good together. And the combinations you can go with are endless.

Typically, designers and homeowners go for cushions with a print you like and several in a solid colour. If you choose more than one print, they should be different. For instance, you can get one coastal cushion that combines and one with cool geometric patterns, but always in matching colours and tones. Then, you should combine the patterned cushions with two monochromatic ones. And don’t forget that they should match the colour palette of your living room.

Tones of green with a nature-themed cushion is another way to go if you want to add a little bit of a botanical look to your living room. You can go for cushions that feature plants with neutral coloured backgrounds, or you can go for something more vivid. In other words, when it comes to colours and patterns, as long as you follow the rest of your décor and you don’t overdo it, the sky is the limit.

Number, Sizes and Shapes

While rules are often loose in the area of home design because everyone has their own taste, there is one “golden rule” in terms of the number of cushions you should place on your sofa or your armchair. The rule of thumb in regard to the number of cushions is to get one more than the number of seats on the sofa. So, basically, you should place four cushions on a three-seat sofa. Of course, you can decide to break the rule, but you should be careful not to go overboard.

Aside from the colours and the patterns of your cushions, you should also think about their shape and their size. One of the most impactful ways to decorate with cushions is to choose cushions in different sizes and shapes. For instance, your patterned cushions in similar tones to the solid ones, can be slightly smaller and/or in a different shape. Then combine them by placing the two in solid colours at each side of the sofa, and arranging the patterned ones between them.