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Green Velvet Sofa

russell pinch sofa for heals
russell pinch sofa for heals

I spoke last week about the idea of having just one standout piece in a room. One element that grabs the attention and lifts it from a tastefully decorated space to one with – cringe – the wow factor. Or, to coin a hideously over-used cliche – the X factor. Answers for a better phrase in the comments below please.

Anyway, I was working on a job last year and hunting for a green sofa. I could only find one. It was from Ikea. It was very comfortable and I specified it for the job. This is the same sofa in the home of Emily Murray of The Pink House.

ikea stockholm sofa at The Pink House image by Susie Lowe
ikea stockholm sofa at The Pink House image by Susie Lowe

And here is another in The Artist’s Residence in London.  The point being that you should always look for that one thing. The thing that will make the difference. And the second point being that yes it might be a piece of art on the wall, or the natural features of the room but it might also be an amazing piece of furniture in a totally unexpected colour that you thought might be risky but turned out to go with everything.

The top sofa is by Russell Pinch for Heals. There are 33 fabric options and many of you will think that because it’s an expensive British made sofa you should be sensible and go for something that won’t date. But you should, always go for something that will make your heart sing.

green sofas at The Artists Residence in London
green sofas at The Artists Residence in London

These three pictures show green sofas in a variety of ways – monochrome, lots of colour and lastly in a more urban glamour setting with luxurious parquet against bare brick walls. Go for it.

Kate Watson-Smyth

The author Kate Watson-Smyth

I’m a journalist who writes about interiors mainly for The Financial Times but I have also written regularly for The Independent and The Daily Mail. My house has been in Living Etc, HeartHome and featured in The Wall Street Journal & Corriere della Sera. I also run an interior styling consultancy Mad About Your House. Welcome to my Mad House.

6 Comments

  1. The first sofa is lusciously gorgeous; sometimes wish I could wean myself off my restrained choices.
    I don’t have any alternatives to those over-worked cliches you cited but may I add a couple more ? Will the heart that sings or skips a beat please just arrest ?!

  2. I love that first green sofa, I would never even have thought of such a colour but wow, it looks fantastic. Living in France, for a while I converted to the greys and the neutrals and the complete lack of colour, but it didn’t last for too long. I have to have colour!

  3. Ah yes, I can relate to the ‘make your heart sing’ notion. I ordered a sofa a few years back from sofa.com (lovely thing it is too) but at the last minute I got cold feet and changed the fabric from pink to a sort of sandy non-colour. Even with a fab Eleanor Pritchard blanket and an ever increasing number of cushions it’s still bland. Though I do have another sofa in the sitting room that needs complete renovation and I’m thinking raspberry pink linen. Hell yeah!

  4. Have you seen the new Ikea Stockholm 2017 velvet sofas? They look amazingly deep and comfortable; green isn’t one of the options, but my eyes are totally set on the grey one. Would be set for blue, if not for the three cats, two of which are grey, so hopefully the hair will blend well enough 😀

  5. We’ve only had two sofas in 30 years and the first one was the green of the one in the bedroom above. It was from habitat when we were newly weds and was briefly peach before we had a child and realised it wasn’t the most stain resistant choice. But as a green sofa it was amazingly adaptable – it lived in 7 houses on two continents and we only replaced it because the puppy went very quiet one day and was only discovered after he had consumed one of the arms.

  6. I have the Scott cotton velvet sofa in grass green from Made.com opposite a wall-hung Smeg retro fire and the Ikea leaf table. The walls are as yet undecided on, though a feature wall with splashy botanical wallpaper appeals, though there’s a very subtle cheetah print that I also really love, against a quieter cream for the remaining three. Some really lovely rooms shown in your post, Kate; I did look at the Ikea
    one, too – beautiful

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