Make It Welcoming: 7 Easy Ways to Add Extra Softness to a Room

updated Mar 11, 2020
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(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Your furnishings, style and tastes have a lot to do with making a home that feels cozy. But sometimes a room just needs an extra kick of comfort to reach maximum levels of warm and welcoming. Like by adding in extra layers of functional and decorative softness. Here are seven ideas you could implement today.

1. Double layer curtains
An instant way to add softness to a space in a large-scale way is to add another layer to your windows. Sheer curtains plus opaque curtains, or two opaque curtains of bold and complementing patterns, create an abundance of fabric and cozy a room up. Find inspiration for putting it together and layering.The example spotted via Homedit.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

2. Extra-big throw pillows
Mix in some oversize throw pillows, 20″ and beyond, with your more common sized ones to emphasize cushion and softness. Don’t just stick to adding pillows to your sofa; a hard chair, stacked on the floor or on a bench are all options for softening with extra big throw pillows.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

3. Stacked throw blankets
It’s not rocket science to know that adding some throw blankets to your space will warm and cozy it up, but try grabbing a few coordinating patterns and make a stack somewhere, especially under a hard-edged table or bench.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

4. DIY Woven Seating
If a corner needs a pop of softness, try finding a free or nearly free chair or bench base and DIY this cute and colorful woven rope stool.

(Image credit: Heather Blaha)

5. Soften hard seating
Try adding things like throw blankets or sheepskins on hard seating like side chairs and dining chairs. This simple example spotted in Eva’s Sense of Clarity.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

6. Soft Art
Whatever you think about the trend of hanging wall tapestries and weavings, it’s hard to deny it’s effective at softening a room. Those allergic to that trend could go with a classic DIY alternative: framing fabric (the more textured, the better!). And consider thrift-found handkerchiefs as a soft option, too.

(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

7. Rounded things
Round rugs are a dramatic, large scale way of adding double softness (because they themselves are soft and their shape connotes softness). But also consider round art, furniture with rounded edges and other curved, natural shapes.

How have you managed to soften a space and make it cozy? Share your space-softening ideas!