How Many Cushions Should Be On a Bed, Answered

Don’t be letting anyone, including your other half, tell you that stacks and stacks of cushions are a redundant inclusion on your bed.

There’s been a longstanding battle between couples for what I imagine is centuries. The battle is over cushions on the bed. The sticking point, from what I’m told, is with one half of the couple trying to tell the other that they don’t need “all these cushions”.

Well, dear reader, let me tell you this: you do need all those cushions. In fact, I give you permission to buy more. Not only because you need them, but because your partner should know better than to question you (and therefore needs to be punished).

News just in: Cushions aren’t Functional

The routine of putting cushions on the bed of a morning, only to toss them off the bed at night, might seem odd to some.

But to me, it’s no weirder than tying your hair up every day only to have it unravel the moment you walk in the door. No more bizarre than buying flowers knowing full well they are going to die. And no more unusual than ironing a shirt that’s going to crease the moment you get into the car.

Why do we do these things? Because they look nice. They look better. It is aesthetically pleasing.

Do we need them? No. But who cares?! Cushions for the most part aren’t functional. But good Lord are they amazing the look at.

I’m almost as addicted to cushions as I am candles (more on my candle addiction here), and I don’t intend to apologise for it.

I understand that nobody uses cushions in bed for the most part. But they are the icing on the cake. I mean, who eats a sponge cake without any icing? It’s pure insanity.

Rooms, like Onions, are Layered

The key to making a room work from an interior design perspective is to ensure it’s well layered. Rooms are like onions in that respect. Except if a room makes you cry, there’s definitely something else going on.

From the walls and floor, right into the furniture and the decor you drizzle throughout the room, every element counts. It’s each of these vital elements, all intermingling, that make the space feel resolved.

To not include cushions in this final, all-important layer is a design sin worse than death. And as I pointed out in this post, I won’t have the minimalists trying to convince me that less is more.

Less is not more when it comes to bedding. More is more. Actually, even more is more.

PS: If you wanna know the cushion types to embrace and avoid, this post has you covered.

Pass me the Goggles, I’m going in the Deep End

I like my beds to be drowning in cushions. In fact, the bed in total should have at least two Euro pillows, four standard pillows, and two or three cushions sitting at the front of the stack. That’s at a very bare minimum.

When I style beds I prefer to have three of four cushions on them, in random configurations to give the bed some drama, some oomph. It, like any other pocket of your home, deserves attention and love. And oodles of cushions are my way of showing a bedroom I care.

On that note, the bed itself should actually have at least five layers on it before you even get to the quilt. More on that here.

I understand that nobody uses cushions in bed for the most part. But they are the icing on the cake. I mean, who eats a sponge cake without any icing? It’s pure insanity.

Bare beds with two pillows and a flat quilt make me want to sob, so I beg you not to let your bedding head in this direction.

When you Partner Complains about Cushions

The next time your partner turns to you to insinuate that the amount of cushions you have is ridiculous and unwarranted, I suggest one of these responses will sort them out:

• You don’t need all those X-Box game, do you?
• You don’t need the power tools you’ve not used in six months, do you?
• You don’t really need all those old car magazines, do you?
• You don’t really need to buy any beer this week, do you?

I got your back, don’t worry!

Drop me a comment below and let me know if the ‘too many cushions’ card has been played in your home. I’d love to know how you dealt with it 😉