Three europillows with white king pullows and an accent lumbar pillow.

Picking the correct pillow sizes for your sofa, chair, bench or bed can be difficult + with so many beautiful options it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.

How big is your sofa or sectional?
How wide is your chair or bench?
What size mattress is your bed?
How many layers should you have?
How full do you want or need the pillows to be?

The last thing you want are pillows that feel too big for your furnishings, too slouchy for comfort or even pillows that look out of proportion or underwhelm in size.

But let’s be real, you know that there are a ton of moving parts in every stage of interior design — so why would selecting pillow sizes for that gorgeous space of yours be any different?!?! *wink*

Putting color, pattern + texture aside (for now) let’s take a deep dive look into picking the correct size + how to anchor or layer in different pillow sizes to create a full look that wows you when you walk into your room.

Psst… sidenote. I restyle our pillows almost every week — call it an addiction! Well, let’s be honest having a kid-friendly home is important + because Brooklyn typically deconstructs them more than once a day it’s become routine.

I steal a pillow from our bedroom + use it on our living room sofa. I grab two pillows from the guest bedroom + use them in our loft. Styling is supposed to be fun, it doesn’t have to overwhelm you.

Ready to learn, babe?

CHOOSING PILLOW SIZES FOR YOUR BED

Being a Taurus who thrives on structure with a healthy dose of spontaneity, I’m not a super big rule gal here. I think, once you set rules it’s now more enticing to break them than it is to follow em! That said, in general, when it comes to creating a layered bed you’ll love, you want to place the largest pillows in the back as they’ll anchor the bed + provide you with a good backdrop to place smaller more decorative pillows in the front.

TWIN BED

There are a lot of ways you can do this but for Twin Beds (which are 38” wide) we love one or two standard bed pillows, a euro pillow + a perfectly place lumbar or small decorative accent pillow. It really gives smaller beds a much fuller look –– which we love.

(1-2) Standard Pillow Size: 20” x 26”
(1) Euro Pillow Size: 26” x 26”
(1) Lumbar Pillow

FULL OR QUEEN BED

When it comes to full or queen-size beds, we can style the bed in a few different ways. One way we really like, because of its clean look, for everyday use is: two queen bed pillows, two euro pillows and an oversized lumbar pillow layered in front of.

(2) Queen Pillow Size: 20” x 36”
(2) Euro Pillow Size: 26” x 26”
(1) Lumbar Pillow

A queen bed in navy blue with two euro pilliows and one lumbar pillow.

KING BED

With king beds having the most room to tossel those pillows, there are literally endless opportunities to pull things together. One way that we like to style a king bed is to add three euro pillows, four king bed pillows, and an oversized lumbar pillow layered in front of.

(3) Euro Pillow Size: 26” x 26”
(4) King Pillow Size: 20” x 26”
(1) Oversized Lumbar Pillow

A king bed with decorative accent pillows.

Regardless of which size you decide, remember to keep the larger pillows in the back + layer various sizes coming forward.

A little secret: if you buy slightly smaller pillowcases than the size of your pillows they’ll look more luxuriously full.

CHOOSING PILLOWS FOR YOUR CHAIRS

Adding a decorative accent pillow to your side chairs creates a warm + inviting feel to your living room that says, “come hither, darling.” Not to mention, those accent pillows can really pull together a space + make it look all sorts of stunning *sigh!*

ACCENT OR SIDE CHAIRS

We’re big fans of going one of two routes with our side chairs. The first is one lumbar pillow placed in the center of the chair or the second way we like to add pillows to side chairs is one square accent pillow.

(1) Lumbar Pillow

Or

(1) Square 20-22” Accent pillow

An accent chair in the living room with a decorative pillow on it.

A navy blue accent pillow on a side chair.

Our feeling is that when you go bigger than a lumbar or a 20-22” square accent pillow, you might as well sit on the floor because too much pillow love ultimately overwhelms the chair.

Yes, it’s a real thing ;)

CHOOSING PILLOWS FOR YOUR SOFA’S, BENCHES OR SECTIONALS

When it comes to choosing pillows for large seating options in your home –– like sofa’s, benches or sectionals, you want to settle on pillow sizes typically in the range of 20-24.”

SOFA’S + BENCHES

We love the look of a 24” pillow in the corner with a smaller accent pillow in front of it as it fills out the sofa really well. But, what if the sofa already has lumbar support and doesn’t have a ton of depth to fill in the corner (like below)? Because we didn’t want to overwhelm the sofa with pillows, three 24” pillows did the trick.

(2) 24” Square Pillows

(2) 20-22” Square Pillows

OR

(3) 24” Square Pillows

A modern classic living room with square euro pillows.

SECTIONALS

As for sectionals, again, there are a ton of ways you can style pillows but our favorite is to fill both corners just like you would a sofa + create a small vignette of pillows in varying sizes in the center where the two sides converge.

(3) 24” Square Pillows
(4-5) 20-22” Square Pillows

A dark sectional with decorative pillows.

There are literally thousands of ways to style a bed, chair, sofa, bench or sectional + while it does take time, the important part is for it to feel well thought out + inviting when finished.

As always, if you need some support in bringing your dream home to life, John + I would be delighted to help!

For real, girl! Guiding you to fall head over heels for your home is our passion.

So book a pow-wow with us here + get ready for some magic, sister!

The Hidden Secrets Behind Picking The Correct Pillow Sizes