Bedrooms are unarguably the most important parts of a home. It is the place for you to relax and sleep at the end of a stressful day of work. If your bedroom isn’t set up properly, it will most likely affect your sleep quality and even affect your mood.
Besides the paint, beds, lighting, and decor, the thing that makes or breaks a bedroom is what’s on the bed. After arranging your bedsheets, if your pillows aren’t organized properly, your room’s aesthetics will fall apart. Since your bedroom is your sanctuary, decorate with pillows for it to be a lovely place to rest and relax.
Before you even get to the pillows, remember that the headboard is your bed’s central area. How big is your headboard? If it’s over two feet high, you will need a lot of pillows to stack up so that your bed can look fuller. If it’s a smaller headboard, or you don’t have one at all, you can rest comfortably by having a very simple and minimalistic setup.
The design of the headboard is the next important factor to consider. A more solid and minimalistic headboard allows for more freedom when it comes to shopping for pillows, as many different designs and textures will complement the headboard. On the other hand, if you’ve got one of those tufted, heavily embellished headboards, you’ll have to find pillows that match its color and design.
It is also good to pay attention to other areas of your house for pillow placement to enhance its overall interior. For example, ask any interior designer, and they’ll tell you that living room decor with throw pillows will add a homey feel to your house.
Just as anything else in the markets, pillows come in all shapes, designs, textures, materials, and sizes. The most important ones are sleeping pillows. These are the basic, simple pillows you sleep on. These pillows don't have to be very fancy. Instead, it would be best if you focused on buying more functional pillows.
If you have a king bed, you should be buying king-sized pillows; otherwise, they won’t take up enough space and make the bed look weirdly barren. And if you buy king size sleeping pillows for a twin size bed, they will take over a large part of your bed, leaving little space for you to sleep.
Then come decorative pillows, which are created to add aesthetic appeal and extra comfort to your bed. Deco pillows help bring the whole bed together, but for most people, they provide that extra bit of visual comfort, warmth, and coziness. These pillows come in a variety of sizes, texture, styles, and designs.
Decorating with pillows is an excellent way to make your bedroom look aesthetically attractive. Pillows can be arranged on a bed in different styles, depending on the pillow type, bed size and design, and the aesthetic goals you want to achieve.
Here’re some ideas on how to place pillows on a bed:
The traditional pillow arrangement is one we have all grown up with. Place two sleeping pillows next to each other, stack them in the “standing up” position on the bed, and you’re good to go. The pillows should ideally lean on the headboard, with two more pillows stacked right behind them.
This arrangement is the easiest one to start with. Since most basic bedding sets come with four sleeping pillowcases, you don’t need to buy specific matching pillowcases. You can even start with the bedding you might already have. Of course, you can add your own ideas and do experiments to achieve the best design. For example, try to finish things off by adding one boudoir cushion right in front of the pillows to enhance the arrangement.
This option is one level above the traditional arrangement. Arranging your pillow on a bed in the minimalistic style will add a little something to your bed without having you to do too much. To implement this arrangement, start with laying your regular sleeping pillows facing up. Stack two sets on top of each other to create a headboard of pillows.
Second, whip out some euro shams; these pillowcases will turn the standard sleeping pillows into something more “showy” as they feature different textures and designs. They often have a large slit at the back that lets you easily slip the pillows in and out. The pillowcases are sure to transform your spare pillows into decorative pillows.
You can stack the sham pillows facing the front, emphasizing them as the main feature of your bedding. The sleeping pillows will provide enough support and supplement your standard shams to make your overall bed design stand out.
Remember that a bed with lots of pillows arranged poorly adversely affects the overall appeal of your bedroom. With the minimalistic arrangement, you won’t have too many pillows all over your bed, and you can sleep on every pillow! Simply pull the pillow out of the sham cover that might be a little bulky, and you’ll have a regular additional sleeping pillow to sleep on.
For a more soft, romantic pillow arrangement, you’ll have to start with large euro pillows. This works well if you have a bed with either a very small headboard or no headboard at all. Using the larger euro pillows brings in the “square” element onto the bed. The euro pillows will lead the eye up, creating more visual interest in your bedding that would otherwise be difficult to achieve.
Next, stack your sleeping pillows on top of the euro pillows, slightly offsetting and leaning them. Arrange your pillows in a way where their corners go past the edges of the euro pillows. By doing so, your sleeping pillows will stay in the limelight. Additionally, they will enhance the overall appearance of your bed. If you have a King-size bed, it makes sense to use three of your pillows to achieve this look, while two should suffice for a Queen bed.
To finish off the arrangement, add two (or three) decorative pillows in the front. You can go with any of the three standard sizes and experiment until you like what you see.
The maximalist pillow arrangement is best for a King size bed. You could give it a shot on a smaller frame too, but it shines where there’s more space. If you’re like the many people who prefer to have many pillows on a bed, this arrangement has got you covered.
To achieve the Maximalist pillow arrangement, start with the largest euro pillows you have and line three of them next to each other. This will create the bulk of the drama, leading the eye not only up but also to the sides, showcasing the size of your bed.
Second, add sleeping pillows in sham covers in front of the large euro pillows. Using two sleeping pillows will suffice, but there’s no harm in experimenting with more pillows.
Many people don’t know how to decorate with throw pillows. These pillows are great when it comes to giving the arrangement a finishing touch. Also, remember that the throw pillows on a bed should feature a large texture or have unique patterns to pull the entire look together.
When done right, this arrangement can add extra visual interest to your room without being overwhelming. You want to be able to still sleep on the bed you’re arranging. You shouldn’t have to take the extra pillows off the bed to fit a person in there. This arrangement is just that, just extra enough.
This pillow arrangement style is a bonus for those left behind in the bedding and bedroom design conversation - people with twin-sized beds. It can be hard to understand how you can arrange pillows on these beds when you’ve only ever seen the classic side by side pillow arrangements all your life. But it’s straightforward to dress up a twin bed too, and there are multiple ways to do it!
First, pick a euro pillow (use a size that’s big but doesn’t take over your entire bed), stack your standard pillows in front of it and finish it off by adding a decorative pillow at the forefront. In the second variation, you can swap the decorative pillow with a boudoir pillow instead, keeping the same idea but ending up with a different look!
If the euro pillow makes your bed look crowded, you can still dress up the bed without it. Take a sleeping pillow and add a decorative pillow in front to keep things interesting without doing too much.
These different pillow arrangements show how much you can do with your bed if you were just to put a little more thought into it. You can tweak any of these styles, mix and match the pillows and customize the arrangement. At the end of the day, it’s your bed, and you have the liberty to style it however you want.
