Should Throw Pillows Match the Rug in a Living Room?

Often the first room that you see when you enter a house, most homeowners put in the effort to decorate their living room to give it a cozy, welcoming feel. According to Industry Decorators, seasoned painters and decorators in London, adding throw pillows is an easy way to achieve this. A splash of color, a pop of interesting prints, or even a calming, subdued hue can change the vibe of a room. If you’re looking to place throw pillows in your living room, read on for helpful tips.

Should Throw Pillows Match the Rug in a Living Room?

This is where decorating gets messy—coordination. Should throw pillows match the rug in a living room? What colors and prints are abominable together? If I wanted a tropical motif, would that mean I have to get rid of our dalmatian pup?

Relax—take comfort in the idea that there is no cardinal rule in decorating.

The only important thing that you have to remember when decorating your home is that it should appeal the most to you. Your home should feel like a warm refuge from the stresses of work and other matters in the outside world. Seeing your house and coming home to it should give you a feeling of peace, comfort, and belongingness.

When decorating your home, it is always ideal to let your personality shine through—instead of that of your interior decorator. Do you go for no-frills, no-nonsense straightforwardness? Are you into the infinite possibilities of mixing and matching? Or are you the bold, unpredictable type? Below are different decorating techniques to match your personality:

 1. The Matchy-matchy

News and entertainment website, SFGate, shares a valuable tip to homeowners who wish to match their throw pillows to their living room rug: matching decorations in a living room brings coherence, but an excess of it results in visual monotonousness. Throw pillows and rugs are two decorative elements in the living room that can be used to create subtle matching. These elements can be matched through one of the varying factors: color, texture, or motif.

1. Color – To match the color of the throw pillows to the living room rug, other nearby decorative elements, such as the couch, should be of a different yet complementary color e.g. grey rug and throw pillows against a red sofa. 
2. Texture – Matching textures between throw pillows and rug creates cohesiveness while still maintaining an interesting contrast against other decorative elements. If you have a velvet living room rug, you can choose velvet for your throw pillows as well or another plush, smooth fabric such as suede.
3. Motif – Having a general motif for your living room allows you to create a statement while still being playful with colors and materials. It is easy to go overboard when decorating with a motif, so remember to exercise restraint—three elements with a small matching motif would be adequate.

2. The Mix-and-matcher

Feel free to adapt these throw pillow mix-and-match tips from The Spruce to your throw pillows-and-rug combo. By mix-and-matching your throw pillows to your rug, the focal area of the living room binds together to form a cohesive yet non-monotonous unit.

1. Choose three colors – The Spruce recommends choosing a “color story” or pulling three different colors from other elements in the room such as the wall or curtains. This way, even if the elements were of varying patterns or textures, everything would still look put together. 
2. Choose three patterns – Similar to the first technique, only this time, you choose three patterns for your living room’s decorative elements. One of the pattern combinations that the website recommends is floral, geometric, and a solid color.
3. Choose three pattern sizes – Last of the “Rule of Three” is pattern sizes. Having varying pattern sizes allows a pattern to dominate, instead of having all three compete with each other.

3. The Rebel

Are you the live-without-rules type? If so, you’re in great company! Architectural Digest shares anecdotes from renowned interior decorators who do not subscribe to the matching rules of decorating. Instead, they promote a do-what-feels right principle. “If you surround yourself with things that you truly love, it will work,” Dallas-based designer Judy Aldridge advises.

There is, however, one important tip: keep one major element simple. This could be a big bright wall or a neutral couch, something to act as glue that keeps all the other elements together. From there, you can start building your collection of decorations that appeal to you.

When it comes to decorating your home, the only faux pas you could make is to follow all these rules only to end up dissatisfied with the outcome. So, going back to the question of whether throw pillows should match the rug in a living room, let us leave you with another question, “If you matched your throw pillows to your rug, would you that make you happy to come home to your house?”