How To Mix And Match Cushions: Creating A Cosy And Cohesive Look For Your Home

Luxury cushions are a great way to add colour, personality and style to your home. You can find cushions in so many different patterns and colours, from gorgeous greens to beautiful blue cushions and every other colour of the rainbow! 

Layering up a lush look with cushions really helps create a cosy atmosphere - nothing says inviting like a comfortable-looking sofa with lots of generous, plump cushions to snuggle in to and soften all the hard edges of the day’s worries. 

But when there are so many different types of cushions to choose from, it can be really difficult to know where to start. You’ll need to have a cushion plan of attack if you want your home’s interior design to give off top-notch vibes!

Keep reading to learn some useful tips on how to select and arrange your cushions so it looks like your place has been curated by an expert.

Designer Tips To Help You Make Your Home Even More Beautiful

We are firm followers of the mantra ‘Mix, don’t match’.

The interior spaces that stop us in our tracks all have one thing in common, a seemingly disparate collection of patterns, colours and objects, that in their sum somehow create something that’s inimitable and totally unique.

If you are new to the idea of mixing, not matching, there are a few basic guidelines that will help you achieve a cohesive but seemingly effortless stylish result. It is definitely something that takes some skill but just like any skill, the more you practise the better you get.

Why would you select the same boring blue cushions for your sofa when you could add so much visual interest to the same zone by mixing patterns and colours? Our luxury cushions are a great addition to elevate your room to the next level and really start to express your own personality through your decorating choices.

Not sure where to start? Two of the main things you’ll want to think about are colours and patterns:

Come Up With Your Cohesive Colour Palette. Colours often go well in groups of three. So where does this magic number of three come from?

The answer to this is that there is a classic design rule known as the 60:30:10 rule. This straightforward rule guides the amount of each colour in a space and is a really useful reference point when you are starting out - helping you to achieve visual balance when working with colours in your home.

The 60% is your main colour, which will often be the colour of your walls. The 30% is your secondary colour, which usually consists of your furniture, curtains or blinds, rugs and more. Finally, the 10% is the fun bit - your accent colour! Often a funky pop of colour, the accent colour can allow you to add more adventurous colour into your interior without overwhelming the palette - especially for colour newbies or people recovering from their Scandi phase.

Luxury cushions are a great way to tie your colour scheme together, look for cushions with your accent colour, or all three of your colours - floral and other decorative designs are great for this as they often contain multiple colours. For example, if you’re using a navy, orange and light blue colour palette, look for blue cushions that have different shades of blue and a hint of orange. We enjoy the challenge of  finding different patterns that use the same colours to keep everything coherent.

If you’re struggling with selecting your colours you can download our free Guide To Creating Beautiful Colour Schemes here to help get you started on your own designer journey. You can also subscribe to our mailing list to never miss out on clever and fun design tips!

But for now look around your home for inspiration. Check out your art, wardrobe, and other treasured possessions to see what colours recur.

Here is a good time to introduce a design principle known as ‘repetition’. Repetition in design is where colours or other design elements such as shapes, motifs, and colours are repeated across a space, helping to create a sense of unity and cohesion. This can be good to remember when you are looking at mixing patterns, look for repetition of shapes as well as colours. If we expand on the example above; you have now also identified that circles are repeating shapes in your home, so you may use several orange and blue cushions, of which one or more may reference the circular motif as well as your colour palette.

Mix Things Up With Amazing Patterns. It’s always interesting to know client’s likes and dislikes when it comes to types of patterns. What do and don’t you like? We suggest keeping an open mind when looking at mixing patterns, as sometimes a pattern you may not have chosen in isolation is the secret sauce to pulling a whole scheme together! One beautiful ‘hero’ luxury cushion can be all it takes to inspire an entire colour scheme.

What to think about when mixing patterns;

• Look For Plays On Scale. You can have fun pairing cushions with large-scale designs with cushions with small-scale designs. For example, you can get one cushion with a large floral design and arrange it with another that has a small floral design. If they have a cohesive connection to your colour palette they will look great together! 

• Think About Stylish Stripes. Stripes are a great addition to a group of patterns; timeless and versatile, a stripe that contains some of your palette colours will effortlessly pair with florals, geometrics, pictorial designs and more. Crisp black and white stripes look amazing when paired with bright clear colours. And if we reference our earlier example again with our blue cushions, adding a striped orange cushion into this mix could be the magic that makes the whole arrangement come to life!

• Look At Classic Plaid Patterns. Plaids often contain several different colours, so they can be a great addition to a collection of cushions if the colour palette is in line with your chosen palette. Plaids are a delightful way to add that sense of homeliness that a country home always imbues, but don’t be fooled into thinking all plaids are old fashioned or fuddy duddy. A plaid design in an outrageous combination of colours can add an edgy modern vibe to a space!

Enhance Your Home With Luxurious New Zealand Handmade Limited Edition Cushions

With a bit of planning, some pro designer tips and lashings of creativity, you can easily mix cushions to create a cosy and cohesive look for your place.

Exotic oriental designs, colour saturated florals, damasks, stripes, and pictorial designs, our shop has something for everyone. We even have a powerful sorter in our store so finding colours from your colour palette is easy. 

Is this your first time dipping your toes into the luxury cushion world? No worries, you can find plenty of info on our site that’ll help you understand what all the fuss is about and why our cushions are an ethical, quality choice to add into your home.

We’d love to hear from you if you have any questions, need help, or just want to share some pattern mixing wins.

Enjoy colourful elegance, comfort and sustainable luxury with Becky Lee!