Round Up: The Best Throw Pillows for Your Airbnb and How to Select Them

staging styling throw pillows Dec 08, 2023

If you've been following me for a while, you may have heard me say "Always start with a plan, not throw pillows." At some point, though, you should definitely think about throw pillows. Why?! Because they're the cute handbags of the interior design world. Small and affordable enough to be able to have some fun with them, but prominent enough that they can make an impact!

If you're overwhelmed with where to find unique throw pillows for your rental, or how to pair them together, this post is for you!

Where to start

Throw pillows are a great way to add extra pops of color and more texture and pattern into a room. If you're wanting to mix multiple patterns and textures for a designer look, here's a simple breakdown of how to do that.

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Step 1: Start with a larger lightly patterned or solid pillow to use as a foundation. Find a pattern you love that speaks to you and works with your existing color palette. Use this as the foundation to build from then...

Step 2: ...add other patterns or textured solids and play around with what works.

This may go without saying, but you should of course have your room's color palette in mind when putting together a pillow scheme. And pay lots of attention to how the rug plays into the patterns and colors you put in your pillow design. And how do you visualize how the whole room plays together?? You put it in a vision board!

Don't worry if you don't know what that means or how to do it... just check out my Design Your BNB E-course!👍🤩! I'll give you a step-by-step guide for going from an empty overwhelming rental to gorgeous and guest-ready!

When I'm shopping for pillows (or anything), at first my board looks something like this. (Not perfect.)

Step 3: Put all of your room items in a vision board, and consider pillow size and layering.

In the board below, I can see all of the elements of the room at once, including the wall color, rug, flooring, and all of the furniture and decor I'm planning to add. This visual snapshot allows me to feel confident in my purchases and avoid time-consuming or costly mistakes.

The pillows floating up above the lamp come in a SET! So, if you feel like you'd rather have a done-for-you pairing by a pillow expert, check out this Etsy shop. Many shops on Etsy do this sort of pillow pairing, and Etsy is my #1 favorite place to get quality pillow covers that will support my design every time.

A few of my favorite Etsy Shops for pillows are The Pillow Cover Store, Valley House Pillow Co., Bo & An Studio (I'm currently obsessed with all of their block prints!), and Blue Willow Decor (which has lots of shippable pairings!).

Here is an example of some pillows I used recently from The Pillow Cover Store on Etsy. The quality was impeccable and I would argue they really add a luxury feel to the entire room!

Shop those pillows from the above photos in this board right here! 👇

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And friends, let's not forget the importance of the pillow insert! If you're buying for a rental, you may want to consider using a down alternative instead of actual down. Sometimes there are guests with allergies that will ask, and also these synthetic options are washable. Yipee!

I LOVE this brand of pillow inserts from Amazon and can highly recommend it. They felt heavy and shapable like an actual down pillow. I noticed they just recently went up in price, like every other thing has lately, but they're still one of the more affordable options and it's worth getting a nice quality insert to go with those new upgraded pillow covers you're splurging on. 😉