It’s Day 24, today we’ll be livening up your living room with throw pillows. One of the easiest ways to refresh your living room is by adding color and pattern to your sofas and chairs with pillows. When you buy a sofa, it usually comes with a couple of throw pillows and often those pillows are the same fabric as the sofa – boring! Take a look below to see the difference a few throw pillows make, the room feels so much warmer, cozier and more inviting.

_{Image from DIY Playbook}

If coordinating a variety of patterns and colors feels overwhelming to you, here are a few tips:

Choose a Cohesive Color Palette

Pick a color or two that work with the rest of the room and keep all of the throw pillows in those hues. Not only does this narrow down your selection options, making the process less daunting, but it links the different patterns on the pillows together.

Play with Pattern 

Don’t shy away from patterns, patterns will make the room look so much more visually interesting than an array of solid-colored pillows. If you're new to mixing patterns, use this formula - a large scale printed pillow, a small scale printed pillow, and a solid-colored pillow. 

Size It Up

Your largest pillows should be at the far corners of the sofa and as you move in towards the middle, the pillows should get smaller. The exact size of the pillow will depend on the size and scale of your sofa. On a cozy, comfy sofa with a deep seat, you could start with 22" pillows in the corners, then step down to 20" pillows, and then place a smaller rectangular pillow in the middle. If you’re selecting covers and inserts separately, select an insert that is larger than the pillow cover, this results in a full-looking pillow. I use pillow inserts that are 2″ larger than the size of the pillow covers. As an example, if you have a 20″ cover and you want a really full-looking pillow use a 22″ insert.

What’s Inside Counts

Make sure your pillows are actually comfy to use. I usually recommend inserts that include both feather and down, this insert from Crate + Barrel is a nice option. ​​​​If you or someone in your home is allergic to feathers, then I recommend a down alternative pillow insert. 

Don’t Go Overboard 

Don’t overload your furniture with pillows, make sure it's still easy to sit down on the sofa or chair without having to move or rearrange the pillows. If you can’t sit on the sofa with the pillows, you need fewer pillows or if it’s a very shallow sofa, you need smaller pillows. If you have a large pillow collection, rotate them throughout the year, you don't need to have them all out at once. If you're planning to start a rotating pillow collection, buy covers that are the same size so you can use the same inserts - this way you're only storing pillow covers and don't have bulk inserts taking up storage space.

Some of our favorite retail sources for throw pillows are Ballard Designs, Pottery Barn, Etsy, Home Goods, The Pillow Collection and Minted.