Cheap and Cheerful – Part 2

Home Design and Decorating – Tips

Cheap and Cheerful

Part 2

Choose Your Pillow Design Carefully

If your first response to an inexpensive pillow is that it looks too cheap… then take a pass; it will stick out like a sore thumb. Chances are it won’t last for long. Look for pillows in solid, muted colors, or with subtle textures. Choose covers with zippers. Prints can be really risky because it’s really easy for them to look cheap. Colours can be off, too bright, or the print not aligned with the colours. The latest trend to block prints may be the exception. It is really difficult to tell colours from a picture, no matter how imaginative you are so it is always better to see it in situ. We offer a free sample service and encourage our customers to take covers home to see them where they will live. Designers do trial runs all the time. They use the same textiles and combinations over and over again when they have a proven fit.

Pair Them With Higher Quality Pillows

My solution is to use a 50/50 mix of good quality and more expensive pillows with cheaper pillows. It seemed to do the trick and fool the eye. Better quality pillows are much nicer, the colours crisper, the seams straighter, the fabrics better, and there is more attention to detail. You may not be able to put your finger on them, but they just look better. When combined with cheaper pillows, your eye glosses over the imperfections in the inexpensive pillows. The attributes of the more expensive ones just seem to take over.

If you sew, try adding one or two pillows sewn from well-selected fabrics that your love.
All of the solid colour pillows shown below came from the biggest online store in the world and cost no more than $16.00 each. I combined them with more expensive pillows from our store. These arrangements could easily handle another inexpensive cover, but I tend to do things in odd numbers.

Photo: Pillows by Dwellissimo

Use a Down or Faux Down Pillow Insert

Cheap Pillows come with cheap inserts; usually foam or polyfill. Throw them out. They become lumpy in no time. They are uncomfortable and do nothing to make the cover look good. Make sure that the pillow cover is removable so that you can switch the inserts out. Many inexpensive covers are filled with loose foam and sewn shut. Quality pillow inserts will last you a lifetime allowing you to change out your covers over and over again. Good inserts will disguise myriad sins.

Faux Down inserts are made of microfibre fill, hypo-allergenic, washable, and act just like down. They have become the preferred choice in our store.
All feather pillows are too often made of chicken feathers and do not have quill-resistant fabric covers. The quills quickly break and start poking through the cover. Look for a goose feather/down combination ranging from 75% to 90% feather with the balance in down.

Faux Down should cost about the same as a goose feather/down mix.

Whether using microfibre, feather/down, or down, we recommend using inserts an inch or 2 larger than the cover to ensure a full sumptuous feel and as a side benefit elevating the cheaper pillows up a few notches.

Now you have it.