Fresh Pillow Combos for Your Living Room
Pillows are one of the easiest affordable ways to switch up the look of a room, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out the right combo! Well, I’ve done the hard work for you and come up with SIX different combos of three pillows each to help you make that quick and easy swap on your sofa or chairs.
You can think of these combos almost like templates - the key is that these patterns and styles work together, and then you can choose how many you need and where to put them, and in many cases, you can choose the size as well.
A lot of these are from Etsy, which is one of my very favorite places to find pillows! There are so many amazing pillow shops out there that offer beautiful fabrics that they sew up into just about any size pillow for you. It gives you an opportunity to get a custom look with designer fabrics without having to search for fabric yourself and go through the hassle of having custom pillows made.
Note that when you shop Etsy for pillows, you’ll be finding pillow covers that don’t include the inserts. That’s actually a good thing in a lot of cases! By buying covers only, you’ll be able to swap them out in the future by just pulling off the old cover and putting a new one on. I like to use feather-down inserts (like these) - they fluff back up nicely and give you that polished look even after lots of use and abuse!
If you purchase a pillow that has a polyester insert, you can always swap it for a feather-down one - just make sure the pillow has a zipper and isn’t sewn shut!
Why these combos work
The key to creating a set of pillows that work well together is finding compatible colors, patterns, and sizes. A couple of simple formulas I like to use are:
Solid texture + organic print + straight-lined print
Solid + large scale print + small scale print
Organic print + geometric print + stripe
I also like to stick to a fairly simple color palette. This is a little bit more of a personal preference, but I generally like to keep it to three or four colors max (including neutrals). One way to find your color palette is to start with a pillow that has all of the colors you’d like to use and then pull different tones out of that for your other pillows. You’ll see a couple of examples of that in my combos today!
Choosing size combinations for your typical sofa
Two 22” square + Two 20” square
Two 22” square + One 20” square + One 14”x20” lumbar
Two 20” square + Two 18” square (if your sofa has a low profile)
If you have a really large/deep sofa or a sectional, you can add another set or two of pillows - you’ll also want to make sure you have enough variety in the sizes so that it doesn’t look too matchy-matchy!
Choosing pillows for your chairs
I usually like to use a lumbar shape for chairs, but there are times when a square works too. Usually a chair needs a smaller pillow (like a 12”x18” lumbar or 18” square) since there is less surface area and you don’t want to make it uncomfortable to sit on! For shallow or petite chairs, I’ll often go without a pillow at all.
Shop these pillow combos
Each combo is numbered below! Scroll down to the corresponding one below the image and you’ll find links* to each of the three pillows!
Combo #1
Combo #2
Combo #3
Combo #4
Combo #5
