A beautifully styled bed is about more than a well-placed cushion. The sheets you love to slip into, the fullness of your quilt and the way you fold a bedcover all play a part. In her masterclass at the Adairs Summer House, Home Beautiful editor-in-chief Elle Lovelock shares how to bring those details together, starting with what feels right for you and finishing with the styling tricks she uses on magazine shoots.
Elle’s bed-styling cheat sheet
- Start with feel: touch and compare sheets before choosing
- Build in fullness: choose a lofty quilt in a weight that suits you
- Hide the seam: keep the bedcover seam underneath the fold
- Shake to shape: hold pillows from the top for stacking, or the bottom for standing
- Short on space? try Elle’s guest-room combination of two sleeping pillows and one slimline lumbar cushion
- Make it yours: play with the arrangement rather than sticking to one formula
Watching for a particular technique?
The bedcover-folding demonstration begins around 5:28, the stacked-pillow method around 6:17 and the upright-pillow method around 6:44. From around 7:07, Elle explains how she keeps her own guest-bed cushion arrangement practical.
1. Choose bed sheets by feel, not just thread count
Before you get caught up in thread counts, think about how you like your bed to feel. Do you prefer a crisp, tucked-in finish or something lighter and breezier? Elle loves the weight and hotel-style feel of high-thread-count Egyptian cotton, but her starting point is personal preference, not a number on the packaging. Visit a showroom, touch the fabrics and talk through whether you sleep hot or cold and the climate where you live. Even cotton twill, sateen and percale can feel different, so let your hands help you decide.
“What’s important is choosing what’s right for you.”
Elle Lovelock
2. Pick a quilt for a full, lofty bed
The secret to a plump-looking bed starts inside the quilt cover. Elle favours a high-loft quilt for that soft, marshmallow-like finish, mentioning down-and-feather blends and microfibre as options. Choose the weight to suit the season and how warm you like to feel at night, rather than choosing for looks alone.
3. Layer a blanket and bedcover for texture
Next, consider the layers you enjoy sleeping under. You might love the weight of a wool blanket or prefer a cotton waffle; as with sheets, Elle suggests letting your sleeping preferences and climate guide you. For a crisp, elegant look, she loves a blanket beneath a bedcover, allowing the cover to drape softly over the sides. Matching pillowcases can tie the bedcover into the rest of the bed for a seamless finish.
4. Fold your bedcover for a polished finish
For a layered take on the throw-at-the-end-of-the-bed look, pull your bedcover halfway to two-thirds up the bed. Fold it back a second time, then a third time towards the head of the bed. Pay attention to the finishing detail: tuck the seam underneath the fold so it stays out of sight. Prefer a more enveloping look? Elle also describes the traditional approach of pulling the bedcover up and folding it over the sleeping pillows, with accent cushions in front.
“The key to getting this look really beautiful is to make sure that the seam is underneath the fold.”
Elle Lovelock
5. Style bed pillows with the shake-and-stack trick
Whether you like your pillows stacked flat or standing upright, Elle has a photo-shoot trick for a neater result. For a stack, hold each pillow from the top, give it a good shake and lay it down, keeping the front seam crisp. For upright pillows, reverse the method: hold from the bottom, shake, then stand them up one in front of the other. Keep your sleeping pillows beneath or behind the decorative ones.
6. Choose cushions to suit your bed and bedroom size
A generous cushion arrangement can look lovely, but think about where those cushions will go at bedtime. In her own guest room, where floor space is limited, Elle keeps things simple with two sleeping pillows and one slimline lumbar cushion. If you don’t have an upholstered bedhead, she suggests oversized Euro pillows or square cushions at the head of the bed to make sitting up with a book or watching television more comfortable. Bolsters and lumbar cushions can be practical additions, too.
“Sometimes I stack, sometimes I stand, sometimes I have accent cushions in the front or I’ll put the colorful euros in the back and that’s the whole point.”
Elle Lovelock
7. Finish your bed styling with a personal touch
There’s no single correct pillow arrangement, so give yourself permission to experiment. Stack them one day, stand them up the next, try accent cushions at the front or place colourful Euros at the back. Elle changes the arrangement in her own home, too. The aim isn’t to follow a rigid formula, but to create a bed that looks inviting and feels like yours.
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