Knoll’s Rivington upholstery in Palm for my midcentury modern sectional

I will cut to the chase with this decision: I will be using Knoll upholstery fabric — Rivington in Palm — on the sectional I am having built for my Mahalo Lounge. 

Earlier, I tantalized you by showing the final choices I was considering for a burnt orange sectional. I had always thought I’d go orange.

But once all my draperies were up… and I had a bit of time to viscerally absorb the dominance of the greens in the large expanse of fabric… I pretty much knew that green, not orange, was the way to go. I ordered a bunch of green upholstery options pronto, and once they arrived, I knew it was the right way to go.

A green sectional will anchor the room much better and ensure eyes moves all around the space. An orange sofa would be okay… but would stop your eye too much… I’ll use lots of orange in accents instead.

To search out the just-right green, I collected samples from the same companies I wrote about in my orange upholstery roundup.

I also knew my choice for green upholstery fabric the minute the sample arrived at my door: Knoll’s Rivington in Palm.

Several friends who have seen the fabric in the room including with the draperies are up were gobsmacked at how beautiful this fabric was in the space. It was a no-brainer.

The Knoll Rivington in Palm has a chunky woven weave that includes greens in a few colors and definitive pops of blues, too. It will look great given the Polynesian Pop style of the room — hey, it’s named “Palm” for goodness’ sake. The chunky weave also gives the fabric some motion, which I like in a large piece of furniture; I was concerned about using a solid color, afraid that all-solid would read like a big blob. I almost always prefer tone-on-tone patterns to solids when I am covering a large expanse — be it countertops, walls, windows or furniture.

I also think the rich green upholstery will look fabulous with all my faux bois wood trim surrounding it and with the leopard print rug planned for underneath.

Last week, the furniture maker who is building the sofa for me came for a visit. He assessed yardage needed, and is sending me a contract letter. Once that is in hand, I will be ordering the fabric, mailing in the deposit, and then … waiting with baited breath to get my new sofa.  

I’ll be visiting the furniture maker during the process to take photos — and I’ll reveal who it is then. The company has been in business making furniture for more than 50 years. They’ll be making my sectional the old-fashioned way — with eight-way tied springs, etc. I’m very excited to have found it!

Most of my room is being put together very affordably (wait ’til I write about my $10 bar hack). That said, the sectional is one of three significant expenses that I bit the bullet and decided to spend on; the other two are the faux bois painting, and the pinch pleat draperies. While I “could” have done the faux painting and made the draperies myself and saved some money there, I was not game to try and build a sofa sectional from scratch; duh. This will be the most money I will surely ever pay for a piece of furniture in my life. I have a feeling that I also may being researching plastic slipcovers soon.