Losing my need for matchy matchy little by little

I have always been one to like things to match and be symmetrical...almost to a fault.  The incessant need almost drove me nuts as a child because if I stepped on a crack in the sidewalk with my left foot, I had to step on the next crack with my right foot to even things out.  The older I've gotten, the more OK I am with things not being perfectly symmetrical or perfectly matchy matchy. 

My first real test....throw pillows.  The pillows that came with our couch are lovely, but they don't really match the concept of the room I was going for.

See?  I didn't really have a plan for replacing them at the time, but knew they were NOT going to work for me.

I went to Birmingham a week or so later to go shopping for ideas for the sun room with Kristin, Trey's sister.  We started out at Southeastern Salvage (wonderful place!) before heading to Garden Ridge so Kristin could get some new planters.  Well, Garden Ridge has about 4 aisles-worth of throw pillows so we decided to have a little look-see.  One thing led to another, and the next thing I know, I'm walking out of there with 8 pillows for the living room!  It took quite some time for she and I to settle on colors and patterns, matching and coordinating, but here's what we came up with.

For the love seat, two beautiful linen pillows with light blue stitching and a third pillow with a neat green, blue, and brown print (if they would have had more than one of these pillows, I would have bought a ton of them).

For the leather chair, I found this really neat silky blue pillow with star burst patterns all over the place.

For the couch, I found two blue pillows and two predominately brown pillows that have a flower pattern on them.  I'm still undecided on this combination and think I may end up going back and exchanging the two darker pillows for something with a more abstract pattern and probably a little more green, but in the mean time, they are working out nicely.

Even though there is still a bit of matchy matchy in the pillows on one particular piece of furniture, the overall look is one of coordination rather than matching.  One small victory for me.  Maybe one day I'll be able to have ALL different pillows without a single one looking the same....well, maybe not, but I think this is a good start. 

Thanks Kristin for helping me to put this look together!