How I Saved My Worn-Out Recliners with $30 Amazon Slipcovers
I have a confession: these recliners should probably have been embarrassed to have their picture taken.
They’ve been in our family room for years, and while the chairs themselves were still comfortable and worked perfectly well, the faux leather had reached the point where calling it “worn” was being generous. It was peeling away anywhere a human being had ever touched it. Mine (pictured below) was the worst of the five as I keep a heating pad on it for my back. It had really received some abuse.
Replacing perfectly comfortable recliners just because they were ugly, though? I really didn’t want to do that.
So I decided to try something much less expensive first: a four-piece stretch recliner slipcover.
But I wasn’t brave enough to order covers for all of the chairs at once. I bought one.
I wanted to see whether it would actually fit my recliner, stay in place, and—most importantly—look like something I was willing to have sitting in my family room.
And I genuinely wasn’t expecting this much of a transformation. Here’s how bad it really was…
And now, here’s the after…
Yes. That is the same chair.
The first cover fit so well that I immediately ordered a second one for the matching recliner.
And then I kept looking at them.
The chairs I had been seriously considering replacing suddenly looked completely different. I was so happy with the transformation that I went back and bought two more covers for two more of our old recliners.
So if you’re keeping count: I started cautiously with one cover just to see if this crazy idea would work…and ended up buying four.
I think that probably tells you more about how I feel about them than any review I could write.
Why These Worked So Well
What made the biggest difference for me is that this isn’t a one-piece cover that gets draped over the entire recliner. The separate pieces cover the back, seat, and arms individually, so the original shape of the chair is still visible.
Instead of looking like an old chair hiding underneath a slipcover, mine actually looks like an upholstered floral recliner.
I chose the Multicolor Floral pattern for our family room because I wanted something that would work with the green walls, wood bookcases and all the colors already in the room.
Then, since I apparently couldn’t leave well enough alone after seeing what the first chairs looked like, I chose a completely different floral for another one of the same old recliners.
Same ugly black chair underneath. Completely different personality.
The Rose Floral has a softer, more romantic look, and I love it in the bedroom.
Would I Buy These Again?
Well…I did.
Three more times.
I think that’s probably the best recommendation I can give them.
A slipcover isn’t going to repair a broken or uncomfortable chair. If the frame is failing, the mechanism doesn’t work or the chair simply isn’t comfortable anymore, a pretty piece of fabric isn’t going to fix that.
But that wasn’t my problem.
My recliners were still comfortable. They still worked. They were just ugly, really ugly.
And spending around $30 to make a perfectly good chair something I actually enjoyed looking at again made a whole lot more sense to me than replacing it.
If you have a recliner that’s still comfortable and structurally sound and you’re considering getting rid of it simply because the upholstery looks terrible, I would absolutely try this first. I wondered if I would need to put a plain cover over them first to hide the color, but I didn’t have an issue. If you had a chair with a bold pattern, you may have to cover it with a plain beige cover and then add the new pattern of your choice, but that is still a whole lot cheaper than a brand new chair. Truthfully, though I chose to cover not because I didn’t want to buy a new chair but because I love these chairs. They are so comfortable and sadly aren’t made anymore. I just wanted to enjoy them a bit longer.
These slip covers gave chairs I already owned an entirely new life—and let me choose something much more fun than just a plain, solid color. If you’d like to shop the exact covers I used, here are links to them.
From Trash to Treasure!!
Multicolor Floral Recliner Cover
A little note about my Amazon links: If you decide you’d like to purchase one of these covers, I’d be so grateful if you used one of my links. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but Amazon may pay me a small commission from your purchase. Those small commissions add up and truly help support me and this website. Thank you so much for supporting what I’m doing here—it means more than you know. ❤️
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