The simple, but well dressed bed! How many pillows are enough?

For a Master Bedroom king sized bed:  One long custom kimono inspired pillow with contrasting velvet pleats and decorative frog closures and two custom silk king sized pillow shams stacked in front of the off-the-rack Bloomingdales linens.

I have worked with a number of clients who are still carrying the 80's and 90's mentality that more is more when discussing bed pillows.  I admit, In my career I have designed upwards of 12 decorative pillows on one bed!  Who the heck has the time to take off and put on that many pillows each day?!  Not me, that's for darn sure.  So in the last few years I started streamlining the pillow schemes that I designed for my clients.  I try to keep it to 3 decorative pillows (plus sleeping pillows) or less.  I find that one larger pillow has more impact than several small pillows and helps to keep bed-making easy.  Take a look at the photos to see how this method can be translated in several different styles. 

For a Master Bedroom king sized bed:  One custom, long embroidered pillow with box-pleat edge stacked in front of two custom blue silk king shams with flat flange stacked on stock West Elm linens.

For a boy's full sized bed:  One large decorative pillow with self welting with one decorative square throw pillow in front of Bed Bath and Beyond linens.