Solid fabric too "safe". How about geometric/bold prints in yellow and red family?

ETA what came to my mind

I really like that first pattern but don't quite see how the yellow would work when nothing else in the room is yellow.

I really like the rust pillows you've got.

I would not add anymore red. I would do a couple of different shades of blue for the pillows, one patterned one solid. I think that area already has enough red in the rug. Red should only be added in small doses to a room as it is such a strong color.

There isn't yellow but there is gold. I have a lot of gold in my rugs and have been pleased with the lightness that yellow in pillows brings to the room despite there being no yellow. The beauty about your rug is you can pick any color(s) for your pillows. I'm just crazy about red yellow and think your roOm would look pretty. Also green blue yada yada.

This place has some really fun pillows. A few that caught my eye for your room

Sheepskin for texture

This is the color concept I was applying. here is a room with a mostly red rug with zero yellow in it yet the yellow pillow looks good IMO. Ingrid in your case I think many colors will work great but perhaps pattern is more important. Your chairs are calm, so a little zing in pillows will go well with rug.

I love this one Ingrid, but don't know if it's too much blue for you or if the colors are right. It's from Pier One. Take a look at their site. ;)

Patti like that a lot

Also love the sheepskin and the one below--just love rhem

Beautiful rug ! If you don't mind me asking, can you tell me where you got it from?

Bossy, when I was posting them, I thought the sheepskin pillow and the one below would go really well together, in fact.

nancy, the rug came from esalerugs. They have a nice policy where you don't have to pay postage or any other costs if you want to return them. I've already returned three!

Everyone has great ideas, and I now agree that red pillows would not be a good idea, and something patterned would be better. Patty, I love the one you posted from pier 1, and no, it's not too much blue. I think it would really brighten up the room and accentuate the rug very nicely. I'm sorry, I'm not keen on furry pillows although they seem to be all the rage again. I also see that yellow might go well with a different colored couch, but with my beige furniture it may not be so good. However, I went "shopping" in by bedroom and found these, although I like the one from Pier 1 better.

Ingrid, I love the one Patty posted. I think it would be perfect with your collections and rugs. Much more you than furry

Kippy, you're right. I'm off to look for it now.

I want the kilim pillow!!

I would use fewer pillows now that you have the colorful, patterned rug. Just make the ones you do use really count. Maybe use one on the loveseat, two on the sofa, and small rectangular pillows for the chairs, like the one in your second photo.

Navy/blue and white/cream to pick up on the ceramic? I also love velvet pillows.

Couldn't agree with mayflowers more. So many beautiful patterned pillows it will be easy to get carried away. At least easy for me. Don't compete with the rug, just complement it and don't forget your solid pillows. Remember, Less is most often More.

I've inherited I think a throw pillow addiction from my mom. You could always rotate them! I have to have rules for myself--"No more throw pillows, no more sheet sets, no more books, and NO MORE SUGAR AND CREAMER SETS!" ;)

nsm, can you please tell me where you found that beige and blue pillow? It's gorgeous.

Linelle, are you talking about my living room? I don't have a kilim pillow.

I de-pillowed, although you may not think these are the right pillows. This is a lot harder than I thought. By the way I read just recently, perhaps on a decorating blog, that one should allow one pillow for every two feet of soft furniture space. Certainly the decorated rooms one sees have scads of pillows, to the point of where you wonder how anyone can sit down. I suppose it's to make the space look prettier and more lively with all that color and pattern. I suppose you could always sit on the floor...

I'm beginning to hate this carpet.....

Linelle, are you talking about my living room? I don't have a kilim pillow.

Nope, the one Tibbrix posted upthread. I don't love it for your room, but I'd love it in mine.

I'm beginning to hate this carpet.....

You're kidding, right? After you painted it and it's truly and forever yours? :)

ETA: Wait, do you mean the carpet, not the new rug?

If you hate it, maybe it doesn't belong there? To me it just doesn't seem right for the room. If you're having to do all new accessories to make it blend better and everything. Maybe if you can't return it, could you use elsewhere in the house? Or sell it? I think a living rug is something that one should truly love in a space, not be a place holder. That's why I haven't bought one yet. I'm looking for 'the one'.

Linelle, I mean the area carpet and don't know how I feel about it at the moment. I now have the pillows the way they look just right to me. I should have waited for the perfect rug; impatience is one of my flaws.

This is an area carpet I bought two days ago for the summer months. I posted it on my carpet thread but I don't think anyone saw it. Is is apparently pale blue although it does not show that way. I hope no one hates it because I'll probably cry.

That rug will be interesting to see in your room

I think you have too many pillow in the first pics. In the picture directly above, the pillows look a little lost. My recommendation would be for two larger pillows for the sofa and just one of the same size for the love seat. No pillows for the chairs----it's too much. For the sofa I would find a solid blue slubbed linen bigger pillow that works with the rug and a pillow in a similar fabric in green or a lighter shade of the red in your rug for your love seat. The rug has very strong pattern and color and you need to bring color up on to the sofas so the rug doesn't look like it was left there accidentally.

The alternate rug actually looks far more suited to the feel of your living room, IMO. With that rug you could use your existing, fancier blue pillows on the sofa with ONE larger latte or mocha solid pillow behind one of the blue pillows. You could then find a single pillow that combined all the colors in the new rug, perhaps a pretty dupioni silk plaid in light brown and blue, for the love seat.

I Agree that the devil is in the details and it is far easier to fix someone else's design dilemma than one's own. Sometimes I have even wondered if that was the meaning behind the biblical reference to seeing a splinter in someone else's eye while not seeing the plank in your own :-)

When does the new rug arrive?

it will be fun to see your newest rug in place- i think it may look much nicer with your sofas, fireplace and wall to wall carpet as well as the tile adjacent to the carpet...

I'm not sure whether you are keeping the red rug, so these suggestions may be OBE: think beyond pillows as a way to bring in the red and blue. Maybe a solid cobalt blue glass vase or similar wide and low type piece on the coffee table. A solid red throw draped over an end of the sofa. Find some books with bright red dust covers and stack them in the side table. Get some bright red things on the mantel. Add a lamp with a red shade. See where I am going with this?

That's a lot of beige ... walls, fireplace, sofa, chairs, drapes and carpet.

You need something that's larger than a pillow to help the rug fight the beige.

Ingrid, when you say "area carpet" is that the same as "rug"?

I think the new one you've ordered goes better with the overall, existing vibe of your room as I perceive it, sitting at my laptop on the other side of the country. I hope you love it.

Ingrid, i've come to the conclusion you're on a quest for the ever elusive *perfect* rug. lol Guess we've all been there at one time or another. For me it's finding the *perfect* duvet or bedspread for my MB~still looking! As for the new 'summer rug', while pretty, I don't see it as a good 'fit' for the space. With artwork/accessories and other things being in brighter colors, and the rug being light/pastel, I see it as disjointed, and you might just as well put down a cow hide rug. Sorry for what sounds like a horrific comparison, but it's the only way I can get my point across. Imo, if you're wanting a summer rug, and something a little more restful, maybe a solid color/tone-on-tone ivory. The printed pillows would bring in colors from your art/accessories, rather than an area rug. It would probably be very complimentary with the carpeting.

I don't know when the new rug is arriving. I was just notified yesterday that it's been shipped with no arrival time given.

It's a bit confusing when someone suggests that I pare down the pillows and then the opposite advice is given. If you blow up the pictures to larger size you can see reddish colors in the painting above the mantel, the abstract painting and the painting of the young girl, also on the spines of some of the books and in the flowered pillow. What you can't see is the rust colored borders in the rug leading to the door to the outside and the dining room and the red in the abstract rug. The walls on either side of the fireplace are not beige, but rather a greenish gray, not easy to see in the pictures. The wall to wall carpet is a definite gray. The colors are really more nuanced than they appear on these photos.

I found another pillow in the armoire which I think strengthens the red. I think it helps quite a bit, especially when seeing the room as a whole.

patty, I'm sorry you don't like the "summer rug", but hopefully I can change art/porcelain/accessories to paler, bluish tones that will complement it. You're right, I was/am looking for the "perfect" rug, which surely must exist somewhere. Not being a decorator, I don't know if I'd recognize it when I saw it. Right now I'm somewhat worn out from the emotionally taxing aspect of what is in the greater scheme of things really of minor importance. I need to step back and ignore it all for a while. Finding the large red and gold striped pillow was a good thing because I don't need to shop for anything and for me it works. Thanks to all of you for your help.

Ingrid, i'm I'm loving the print pillow(light background)w/the current rug! ;) I also feel the others work as well. Could it be a homerun? lol

if you keep that rug there, i would change out the light blue pillows on the chair/sofa... even if there's some of that exact color blue in the rug, the overall look of the deep colored rug with the lighter/softer colors is one that doesn't appeal to me... the red one on the sofa looks like it looks nice with both the sofa and the rug...

Red and gold stripe? I'm not seeing that. I get what you mean re:shopping...I hate it also! Don't need, or want, anything for my home. Like yourself, I can 'shop the house' if I decide I need a change. I sometimes think i'm in a rut since i've changed things very little in the 7 years i've been in the house. On the other hand, I do NOT want to become 'one of those people' who leaves everything the same for 20 years. lol

You know, I think that pulling all of the blue pillows and leaving just the red and patterns heavy in red might be the way to go. But then for that cooled off summer look swap the red pillows with the blue and beige. That should give you some real changes and really not cost anything. And at worst if you don't like it it is easy to swap out pillows.

Patty, if you click on the picture to enlarge it you'll see the red and gold stripes in the pillow on the couch. I really hadn't changed things much in 8 years other than buying more porcelain and a few paintings and rotating them around, and it was getting the new gray wall to wall carpeting that was a catalyst for everything that followed. It's been fun! (for the most part)

Kippy, I just removed the blue pillows, which are now happy residing on the guest bed on top of a deep pink bedspread. I put back one of the rust pillows and it does look more coordinated. Just to be contrary I left the gray lumbar pillow on the chair!

Check out PB solid red velvet pillows as well as solid yellow/gold velvet pillows. Also, Grandinroad kilim pillows for $39! Just got the catalog today and they are pretty! (p. 65 of catalog if you get it.)

I had picked out some red pillows from there and then someone above said red pillows would be too much red so I gave up that idea. The blue pillows are back on the couch; I realized I wanted them there after all. I don't think I want to add another color at this point, but thanks for your suggestions.

Link to the blue/beige velvety pillow I'd posted above. It's from etsy but apparently not available right now. https://www.etsy.com/listing/80146732/sukan-pink-ikat-pillow-pink-cream-modern

As far as the current rug, I can see it in the fall/winter with brighter cushions or with blue/white to play on the Chinese ceramics (and some brass/gold).

I'd get IKEA solid velvet pillows and their down inserts. They are very inexpensive (8.00), so you can swap them around.

I would remove all of the pillows in the room now. They do nothing for the room and truly look like they are bedroom pillows.

"They do nothing for the room and truly look like they are bedroom pillows."

Agree.

I didnt know there was a distinction between sofa and bedroom decorative pillows.

Huh? *bedroom* pillows? Agree with Rose.

Bedroom pillows? No pillows? I think it might be best to end the pillow discussion now because I've reached saturation level.

I'm in agreement with you Ingrid. ;)

Well, Spring is here and Summer on the way and you'll want the new light blue rug down anyway, so why worry about red accessories now?