The Issue: Sound it out

Soft touches

Have you ever been to a hotel and found that your bed is piled high with cushions? It looks pretty, or pretty impressive yes, but what are they for? The minute you want to get into that bed you have to throw them onto the floor and there, well there they are simply a trip hazard.

It’s a fashion that does not seem to want to go away, one that has even penetrated home life with scatter cushions littering homes across the country.

Soft furnishings are big business but they also have a use in a home interior. With the advent of hard flooring and the growing demise of the fitted carpet they do one very useful thing. Hard floors, wood, laminates, vinyl… well they can look great but they can also make a room sound incredibly hollow. If you add to the mix a lack of curtains, another fashion, then a room can start to sound like it has an echo.

We all talk about a room looking warm, and I think that for the most part we assume that that warmth is created by the careful use of colour. That is not untrue of course, although it is more complex than saying that reds are warm and blues are cold, there are warm and cold reds as well as blues, and if you are in doubt seek out an artistic friend to help and explain that.

The minute you want to get into bed you have to throw them on the floor

Hard surfaces create a harsh sound and without carpets and curtains in a room there is a good chance that you will suffer from a cold sound profile.

This is where soft furnishings can help. Cushions, throws and rugs can soften that sound massively and absorb those hollow echoes. Soft furnishings also do the obvious and soften surfaces and add a little more comfort.

There is also another useful application for the cushion. In a neutral interior those cushions can be used to ring the changes between the seasons, one palette for the summer and then one for the winter. You can completely change the look of your interior by simply “scattering” a few cushions about to very great effect – but do remember, that if you cannot sit on it or usefully employ it, then it probably has no place in your home.