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wireman's avatar
wireman
Explorer
Feb 16, 2013

REPLACE SOFA/HIDE-A-BED

I am thinking of replacing the sofa/ bed with 2 recliner-rockers. This sofa/bed is the most uncomfortable unit devised by man. People say the floor is more comfortable to sleep on. not much better to sit on. We don't need the bed any more, so the recliners seem to be the best option. Any thoughts on replacement brands? Not looking for any super high quality. Trying to stay in the $450-500 range per unit. Has anyone bought regular living room recliners instead of rv specific units. Any issues? Thanks. Wireman
  • We replaced our sofabed with 2 Euro chairs with foot stools we purchased relatively economically on line. Very happy with result. Not as big a task as originally thought. Good luck!
  • We are right now searching for 2 new recliners to replace the two recliners that came with our trailer. The two that we already have are from a place called Williamsburg Furniture in Nappanee, IN. But, they are actually made in China.

    They are vinyl, not leather, and we use them a lot since we are snowbirds. The finish on the vinyl is wearing where a person's head rests against it. So I would suggest you at least give some consideration to buying leather instead of vinyl.

    The chairs we have are kind of a knock-off a line of recliners called STRESSLESS.

    Stressless is a company in Norway that makes premium recliners, as in $2,000 to $3,000 per chair. These kinds of chairs sit on a smaller diameter but heavy weight platform, as opposed to the giant disk approach taken by Lazyboy. I do not know how they do it, but these chairs pretty much can't be tipped over. It also makes them easy to move around when closing slideouts or getting at storage behind them. I guess what I have learned so far from our shopping is we do not want recliners with ordinary post type feet. We want something similar to what we have, but in leather. That, in turn, would be similar to the Stressless approach. But we do want to pay anything close to that kind of money. So the search continues.

    Most small recliners are about 30 inches wide, and 30 inches deep. For a bigger person this is okay, but not great. I sat in a small Stressless recliner yesterday and my shoulders kind of covered up the whole chair back. The medium size made more sense.

    I wish I had an actual recliner manufacturer to suggest, but we are still working on through our options. However, if you Google Stressless you will see what I mean about the round base versus four post type legs.

    As far as the hide a bed/love seat we have, I bought a 3/4 inch, four foot wide, pre-sanded piece of birch plywood at Home Depot and put it under the cushions. I had my doubts that this was going to work, but it did make the sofa 100% more comfortable. You just might want to try that option before removing the sofa.
  • Be sure to try the recliners as they are not all alike. Lay-z-boy comes to mind. Also be sure you can get them thru the door!
  • I would be especially careful about the mounting bolt access if the present sofa / future recliners are located on a slide out ( as mine is) . Keep us posted as to your success ... I'm sure that many folks have similar ideas.

    Your 100% right about the uncomfortable sleeping on the original equipment units ...much rather sleep in a recliner !!!

    Roger
  • Make sure the floor is flat under the sofa. Did this change out on my Dutchstar and when removing the sofa discovered that the floor is not flat. Resulted in having to revise my plans. I am still pleased with the final results. Search on the internet resulted in several choices for the type of recliner that we wanted in the under $750 price range.