Want to take your living room decor to the next level?
Mixing and matching pillows on a sofa is a simple, inexpensive way to add personality and flair to your living room.
In this quick guide, we’ll break down how to mix and match pillows on a sofa, step by step.
Let’s get started.
Pillow Presentation
Find Your Existing Themes
As we stated in “how to mix and match bedroom furniture,” mixing and matching become easier when you follow the rule of three.
Before browsing different pillow colors and patterns, identify the existing “color story” of your living room.
You likely have some established themes shared by your current furniture.
From these pieces, identify three core colors to dictate your design decisions — Homesandgardens.com suggests having no more than one main color, two accent colors, and neutrals.
You can also use existing patterns, textures, and shapes to influence your pillow choices.
Doing so creates cohesion throughout your living room through shared design themes.
Matching Pillows
In decor, matching usually refers to specific traits on an item.
But, when mixing and matching pillows on a sofa, you’re welcome to use a matching set of identical pillows.
Nestingwithgrace.com suggests placing one pillow on either side of the couch to serve as anchor points and filling in some mixed pillows on either side to provide contrast.
Bonus Tip: Have a chair accompanying your sofa? Place a pillow from a matching set on your couch and the other on your chair to draw attention to both pieces.
Number of Pillows
Your existing decor can also influence the number of pillows you place on your couch.
For a modern, relaxed arrangement, stick with odd numbers — three or five, according to 1000-welcomes.com.
In contrast, an even number of similar pillows in groups of two or four provide a clean, orderly aesthetic.
Pillow Visuals
Pillow Color
If your living room has a neutral color palette — black, white, brown, or grey — combine muted and other neutral color pillows to decorate your couch.
Matching the colors of the pillows to other items within your living space draws the eyes around the room.
To make your couch a distinct piece on its own, mathisoninteriors.com suggests using a single bright pillow for visual contrast.
Pillow Pattern
Mixing and matching colors go deeper than single-color pillows.
You can mix and match pillow patterns as well, as long as each pattern includes at least one of the three core colors in your color story.
Thespurce.com recommends choosing a larger pattern that contains all three colors to be your “lead” pattern.
Then, any secondary patterns — such as stripes or houndstooth — should contain one or two of the core colors.
A third pattern should be more subtle — either a solid, dotted swiss, or damask stripe.
This way, your patterns don’t compete with each other for attention.
Choose patterns with contrasting scales while mixing organic and geometric patterns, or opt for only one patterned pillow, joined by some solids.
Remember to keep things simple as too many patterns are overwhelming and near impossible to coordinate.
Shapes and Sizes
You can also mix and match the shapes and sizes of your pillows.
Hadleycourt.com suggests trying a lumbar pillow or a circular pillow (especially for a nice contrast on a boxy square).
Choose pillows in two to three shapes, creating height with the larger pillows at the back.
The largest pillows — typically 22”-24” depending on your sofa or sectional size — should be your end pillows.
Pillow Feel
Textures
For advanced mixing and matching, play with the juxtaposition of smooth, rough, soft, and fuzzy textures such as faux fur, velvet, linen, knot wools, and metallics.
Thezhusg.com recommends mixing and matching natural fabrics or heavily patterned and printed materials with neutral fabrics.
Bonus Tip: If you’re aiming for an elegant and luxurious aesthetic, add decorative trims to your cushions.
Firmness
Take mixing and matching pillows to it’s deepest level by experimenting with the contents of your pillows.
For example, a feather-and-down pillow will have more “give” while providing a softer squish.
In contrast, foam and other synthetic pillows are firmer and hold their shape better.
Let Us Know
As you can see, mixing and matching pillows on a sofa allows for in-depth customization, empowering your to create a space that’s uniquely you.
For more fun mixing and matching pillows check out Arranging pillows on your bed.
Let us know which tips you had the most fun with, and tag us in pictures of your sofa on Facebook and Instagram.