How to finish your home décor using statement cushions

Unless you accessorise, your home décor will look incomplete and not inviting at all. Accessories confirm the style and the ambiance the room will take. In some cases, it may even be the entire colour scheme of the room, particularly in a room that uses neutral tones on walls and furniture. One of the easiest and most inexpensive accessories is a grouping of cushions.

Sometimes, simply changing one or two cushions can change the whole mood of the room. That's precisely what statement cushions do. They can add elegance or a formal look or create a seasonal appearance, using cool greens and blues for summer, with warmer browns, reds and yellows for the winter months.

You don't have to buy new furniture every time you want to freshen your living area or go with a different look. Frankly, that would not only be expensive, but silly and wasteful too. Instead start brightening the area with a few new cushions and maybe, for a completely different look, a new lampshade and area rug, too. It won't take much money or time to create a new look and feel like you're in a completely remodelled room.

Switching the Seasons

There's nothing better to herald the arrival of spring and summer than soft floral prints and pastels. Stick with your present palette and soften the look. Instead of rich deep colours, use a soft pastel that goes with your present décor. Add a few statement cushions that have a floral pattern or greenery to herald the oncoming season. If you already use just cushions and accessories to define your colour scheme, a more dramatic change can be yours. In some cases, just adding a statement cushion or two, ones that embrace the new look you want, can make all the difference in the world.

Creating Décor for the Festive Season

You can hang the stockings on the fireplace mantle and have a tree filled with lights and tinsel for a festive look, but if your family is grown or you want to simplify the festive decorating, adding cushions that bring a holiday spirit to the house may be just as easy. It takes time to unpack, decorate and repack festive items and changing out statement cushions is far easier. Just take them out of their plastic tub or encasement and put them on the sofa in a stylish grouping. If you love decorating for the festive season, this simple trick could add more flair to your decorating style. Don't forget some special romantic statement cushions for the bedroom for Valentines Day!

Updating with a Statement Cushion

No matter what style of décor you choose, it changes and becomes more modernised. Statement cushions can help you change your room to a more relevant now look. Sometimes all it takes is changing one or two cushions to create the new look you want. For these simple changes, be mindful of your present colour scheme and look for a cushion of a complementary colour or similar colour but different texture, shape or size to give just the right effect.

Changing the bedroom design is just as simple, as changing the cushions on the bed. It's not necessary to buy all new bedding, although many people like to have several types of bed covers for the different seasons. You can have fun with the changes and find whimsical cushions with a light-hearted design or change a few cushions to create a more formal or dramatic appearance. Don't forget about any chairs in the bedroom or a window seat, they can also benefit from a little sprucing and decorative landscaping with cushions.

Keep Up with Your Growing Child

Children grow so fast and their decorating preferences change just as quickly. The soft pastels, hanging mobiles and bassinet of the infant quickly change to the single bed or bunk bed of an active child, but don't stop there. Before you know it, you're helping to create a room fit for a princess or dinosaur hunter and then a more opinionated teen with a wide variety of interests. While the change from infant and toddler to school age child requires furniture changes, from there on, it can be done with accessories, colour and design.

For younger children, adding their favourite storybook character in the form of statement cushions and other accessories, can give a theme to the room. There are even dinosaur shaped cushions, if you're child is a budding palaeontologist. In a wink of an eye and some strategically placed cushions and accessories a young boy's room could change from a jungle safari to a sports theme or young collegiate without emptying your wallet or putting pressure on the budget. A young girl can go from princess, favourite children's book character or even dinosaurs, to a more sophisticated look with just a few changes. Statement cushions are a part of the transformation.

When working with children, particularly older children and teens, get their input before selecting the room décor. You can keep a neutral tone throughout the room and let accessories and cushions add the colour and theme. Some children want the walls wild colours, including bright red or black. By simply changing over accessories, keeping the walls neutral, you'll have an easier time when that phase is over and they're ready for something new.

General Rules for Using Statement Cushions

Keep it simple. Sometimes just changing one or two cushions makes a huge difference and refreshes the room dramatically. Take one step at a time, first changing over the easiest, such as the cushions then doing more if it warrants.

Stick with the same general colour scheme. While you may add bolder colours to the scheme, keep them in the same colour group but use different tones of the colour. If you want to be more dramatic, choose one more colour for the palette, but too many colours can create a decorating disaster that looks cluttered and busy with no direction. Try adding focus cushion or two with an interesting design before you add more colours.

More is not necessarily better. Sometimes more is just what you need to get the look you want, but that's not always the case. Too many cushions on the sofa makes it difficult to find a comfortable position and limits the seating. Too many cushions on the bed takes extra time to stack at night and re-stack in the morning. Identifying the look you want first is a great help in deciding how many cushions to use and whether to add more or just switch out one or two.

Create more interest by varying the size, shape and texture of the cushions. These variations not only add interest, they give the grouping a more professional appearance.