Metamorphosis of a La-Z-Boy Recliner

I had a blast transforming this old La-Z-Boy recliner into a funky chair for a special tween!

Vintage La-Z-Boy chairs can be updated for any decor. Think of the possibilities to add a fun chair to a space, whether it be team colors in a man cave or a using a chenille spread for a shabby chic look or a vintage inspired nursery. The chairs are comfortable and they can rock, swivel and recline. What more could you ask for in a chair!

I updated this La-Z-Boy recliner years ago when I was still new to upholstery. In fact I was still taking classes. For every class I took, I tried to take on a new challenge so I could learn as much as possible. This recliner was a perfect learning tool and I’m so glad I had my instructor to guide me through this advanced project.

This chair was designed for a special young lady, Mylee.

She and her mom have been friends of mine since Mylee was 3 months old. They moved into my neighborhood, and my sweet dog, Cody (if you know the history of Cobani Bleu, Cody is the CO in Cobani) couldn’t resist that sweet baby smell, when we encountered Mylee and her mom, Joyce on our morning walks. I’m so glad Joyce loved dogs, cause Cody was very determined to be Mylee’s best friend! Well, we’ve all been friends ever since. And Mylee is now a young woman, smart, strong,  beautiful and a dog lover! Score one for Cody!! Haha!

Several years ago, when I was starting out in upholstery, Joyce was updating Mylee’s bedroom to better suit the tween years. They decided they wanted a Cobani Bleu original. So it was quickly decided that I would do a chair for Mylee’s room. I was pretty much given free rein on this project. And what fun I had mixing and matching fabrics and textures.

Now the fun part of reupholstering a La-Z-Boy recliner is that you need to disassemble the recliner in order to strip the old fabric and wrap the new fabric around it. Haha! When recliners are factory assembled, they have specialized tools that allow the workers to access the internal nooks and crannys to tighten all the nuts and bolts. Yea, I didn’t have access to those same tools to disassemble the chair. See, the seat is attached to an expanding mechanism that allows the seat to slide forward to a reclining position. After lots of studying and pictures taken and conferring with my teacher, I was finally able to detach the seat from the frame. Whew!!

Now that I had the chair disassembled, my favorite part could begin, picking the fabrics! I wanted this chair to be very fun and eclectic. I had quite a few fabrics that by most accounts would not go together.

But they had some colors in common so I began to play around with the colors, patterns and textures. The seat fabric was a given, a corduroy type fabric with shades of blues, greens and yellows in a funky floral pattern. This fabric was the jumping off point.

Next up was the inside arms, and I had a definite opinion about that as well. I wanted the arms to be a soft fabric so that when you are resting your arms and hands on the chair arms, you would feel the soft texture. A bright lime green minky dot fabric became the perfect choice. This is not a traditional upholstery fabric, but then this chair is not exactly traditional either. HaHa!

I really needed to make decisions about the other fabrics to use on this chair. As I said, I had quite a few to chose from. Although, I wanted this chair to be very funky, I also felt like there needed to be some order to it as well or it would just become a hot mess. I decided the solid dark blue would be used on the outside back and the chair skirt. I used the same fabric for the welt cord and the buttons. This would provide some grounding.

I love the pattern of the blue and white faux bois (wood grain pattern) fabric for the outside of the arm. I thought this same fabric would work well for the fabric that attaches the back cushion to the chair back.

That little bit of vertical pattern wrapping the chair back and extending to the outside arms brings interest but another bit of uniformity to the whole chair. This same fabric was used on the top of the extendable footrest.

I will say this about upholstering a La-Z-Boy, its not the easiest project, but once you get it taken apart, its not too bad. It is definitely a case of using the old fabric as a pattern! Let me tell you, there are some strangely shaped pieces of fabric on this chair. Even though I marked them carefully, and tried to mark the edges that needed to be sewn together, somehow I didn’t get it right on the first try. The cover for the attached pillow just didn’t fit right. I ripped it apart and studied and studied how to sew it together and finally got it right! The seat cover also had to fit exactly.

Here is the important thing to remember, any edges that need to be sewn together, you need to use the old fabric as a pattern, and cut exactly. For any edge that needs to attach to the chair frame, you need to allow 2-3 inches of extra fabric. This allows you to pull, tighten and smooth the fabric before stapling it.  For a single pattern piece, you can have one side that is cut exactly, so you can sew it to another piece, but the other side of that piece may be several inches larger than what will show once stapled in place. This fabric is often trimmed down once it is smoothly secured. It’s important to have that extra fabric to smooth and ease into shape. Hope this makes sense.

I am so pleased with how this chair came together. The patterns, colors and textures all come together to create a fun eclectic chair, and knowing who would get this chair made it all the more fun to redo!

Next time you need a unique but comfy chair for a space, think about updating a La-Z-Boy. You certainly don’t have to do the funky mix and match fabrics like my project but then again why not have some fun!