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P&O Tips: Bed Pillow Placement

The next installment of an occasional series where we share tips and tricks of the trade to help you navigate sometimes puzzling home design questions.

Today’s Question: How should I arrange the pillows on my bed?

Ah, yes, the age old question. How do I wrangle all these pillows into something that is pleasing to the eye? We can help.

First, know that our recommendations vary depending on the size of your bed. Here, we’ll give tips on king and queen size beds, but you’ll be able to apply these concepts to smaller beds also.

Here are your goals:

1. Comfort and ease

Dislike taking mounds of pillows on and off the bed each day? Don’t! Choose a smaller number of pillows, or the configuration you are most likely to want to repeat each day. Because our number one tip is…make your bed EVERY day! A made bed means not just a finished space, but a clear head and a soothing place to enter at the end of a long day.

2. Create symmetry on the bed.

The goal in all our configurations is to give the bed — and the pillows — a cohesive, connected look. The best way to achieve this is to break up the visual voids between each pillow, creating a cascading effect. This is especially important when you are using a lot of pillows!

3. Tie in other design elements in the room.

Floral wallpaper might call for pinstripe pillows. A mostly neutral room may benefit from pattern or color in your bed pillows. Pillows can be a a great place to introduce texture, especially in a bedroom where soft and smooth often rule.

You can use pillows to get a little dramatic, but simple works, too. Whichever direction you choose, you can elevate your space significantly with pillows.

Without further ado, here are some sketches with our recommendations for arranging pillows on your bed in a way that is practical, and also pleasing to the eye.