Sectional couches are a great addition to your room, but they can be incredibly difficult to style. The size of the couch can swallow your pillows whole, and too many pillows is busy and hides your couch. Fortunately, we have a few tried and true tips at Hackner Home to help you style a sectional. If you need help picking out pillows for your sectional, we are happy to help you! Contact us here.

1. Use a 24×24 pillow in the corner.

That corner is deep, so this large pillow fills the space and makes it a more comfortable place to sit. This is the focal point of your couch and your design. This is a time when you want to use a pillow as big as possible for maximum impact.

This pillow takes up the entire corner, while still leaving room for other pillows. If you’re trying to cozy up in this corner, you will have room to sit without sinking in too far. (Maybe this is a short gal problem, but I always end up looking at the backs of everyone’s heads when I sit in a sectional corner at a party. A 24×24 pillow would fix this situation.)

2. Place pillows in every corner.

This tip really depends on the size of your sectional. Basically, every end or corner should have at least one pillow. This helps the couch be more comfortable wherever you choose to sit, and it also ties the look together. If your sectional has a chaise lounge section, you do not need to place pillows on the end of the chaise lounge.

The pillows on this sectional by @caitlinmariedesign on Instagram really make this look stand out. They bring color and depth to the room, and she uses a variety of styles to give the couch interest. Also notice the large pillow in the corner, which fills the space so well.

In this design, @thefontaineflat does not need pillows on the chaise lounge end. The pillows would not stand on their own. This is the one exception to this rule.

3. Mix and match pillow styles.

It really depends on your decor style and the size of your couch how many different pillow styles to use, but we don’t typically recommend more than 3-4. This keeps the look coherent across the couch. We recently worked with Mark from @collectivedigs to create a look for their new sectional.

This design has 4 different pillow covers that can be mixed and matched in different combinations on the couch. They all have a similar color scheme and design feel while all also looking nice with each other. We chose this really fun deer pillow cover to be the accent and only featured one. This makes that one pillow stand out more and draws attention to the wall decor.

We also used an assortment of sizes that work with each other and provide interest to the look. Besides the one deer pillow, we used 2 pillows of each style for a total of 7 pillows. This may seem like a lot, but they can create several different looks (and think about the size of the couch).

Mixing different styles keeps the look from being too matchy-matchy, while also creating a consistent look. We are always happy to help you find different pillow styles from our Hackner Home collections so you can create a beautiful look for your sectional.

4. Use a blanket to break up the couch.

An issue with sectionals is that they can come to dominate your living room. This can be a good thing if you want one piece of furniture to serve many purposes in the space, but it can also overwhelm any other decor you want to show off in the space. A blanket is the perfect solution to this problem.

You don’t have to use an Hermes blanket like @artofeverydayliving, but this design shows how to use a blanket to split up a sectional. It is an easy place to use when you want to be warm and cozy and it makes you see the couch on either side of the blanket as separate.

Alexis from @iris_inspiredinteriors placed 2 blankets on the end of the chaise lounge which makes that section look shorter, like a regular couch. By doing this, she can use smaller pillows on that end and still look balanced. These blankets also add different colors to the overall neutral room without taking away from the statement wall of art.

5. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Be creative.

Even in this article we showed you so many different examples of beautifully styled sectionals that show off the creativity of these designers. The most important thing is that you create a look you’re going to love and want to use every day. Pick colors and styles that work for you. If you want every single pillow to be different, do that. If you don’t want blankets on your couch, that’s fine too.

Here at Hackner Home, we love to help you style your space in a style that works for you. Contact us if you would like a custom pillow cover set for your sectional and check out our other styling guides for more pillow tips!

Coming soon: Hackner Home Design Book

We created an awesome design guide to help you style your home. This guide is full of our best tips and newest pillow covers. It contains pages like the one above with illustrations of ways to place pillows for different couches, chairs, and beds. Stay tuned for our design guide drop to snag one for yourself!