It’s safe to say I’ve rarely met a throw pillow I didn’t like, largely owing to my approach to home décor (and fashion, for that matter): accessorize well and memorably, and you can get away with spending much less on the big things (namely, furniture and clothes). Hence my passion for pillows—they instantly dress up a room, and are a surefire way to “pull” color out of a rug and unify a space. Rarely do I return from a trip abroad without a few fabulous pillow covers, even if I don’t have a place for them (yet). They take up minimal real estate in the closet, and as my mother says, “You don’t have to feed them!”

Alas, throw pillows can be expensive (or, in NYC, wildly overpriced). When I recently moved and bought a very large, very neutral sofa for my living room, I realized I needed a plethora of pillows to bring it to life…and nothing from my existing inventory was going to cut the mustard. My dilemma was three-fold:

• The living room rug is ornately patterned, so the pillows needed to be plain, but gorgeous.

• The colors in the rug that the pillows needed to mimic were very subtle, and likely hard to match.

• My budget was extremely limited.

Where to turn? To eBay, of course! Simply put, it’s a do-it-yourself interior decorator’s best friend (more on this subject in future posts). With a little careful searching, I discovered my latest favorite eBay store, Rana’s Pillows http://myworld.ebay.com/ranas_pillows/. Thanks to my new friend Rana, I am now the proud owner of a veritable slew of shantung silk beauties in a range of dreamy shades, including coral, gold, sand, and powder blue…all fully lined and piped, with a covered zipper. And I paid a small fraction of what I would have shelled out somewhere like ABC Carpet & Home (literally—I checked).

Rana's pillows in action at the Kirkman Ranch.