Since we were at my Mom’s house for 3 weeks waiting for our refrigerator to be repaired we had a lot of time to do other things. One thing was looking for two recliners to replace our couch. The couch was OK but the combination of my cracked tailbone and Roxie’s bad back, it made it difficult to sit on for any length of time. Also, Roxie would invariably fall asleep during a TV show and end up in some odd contorsion that would hurt when she woke up.
We have seen other Airstreamers such as James and Carmen Beaubeaux who did this:
They mention the recliners in their blog post here. These are Lambright recliners.
The limitation is to find two comfortable recliners that fit where we are removing this couch:
The width between the side cushions is 6′ so each recliner cannot exceed 3′ in width. We looked around a bit in the Phoenix area, initially at an RV Salvage lot. They had nothing although it was very interesting looking at the salvaged parts and they recommended a place to look at where we did find the recliners. Here is the recliner:
We like the look, sturdiness and the size fits with room to spare. They were to be delivered to my Mom’s house in 3 days. Time to prepare their spot!
During my solar install 1 year ago I had to put 4 batteries and move the electrical components around to fit under the couch. Now the couch was going to be gone so I had to cover up the batteries and move the components under a shelf that had to be created. Keep in mind that we are not at our son’s house where we have a large set of tools. This will be fun (sarcasm)!
This is what I had to work with after removing the couch and the box (to the left) that contained the charger/converter. The goal was to make everything as close to the front of the trailer as possible.
Below are shots of the Pine plywood front. Due to the lack of tools I had to use a coping saw to cut open the ‘rectangular’ hole for the fuses and 12v cutoff switch. The old setup used a hinge on that panel but I just screwed them in. The vent holes are perfectly round which shows I did not do them. In Sun City West they have a club for woodworking. I took the panel down there and had them do them for a donation.
The front side was done. Now for the top. It was pretty simple (see below)
What to do with the old couch? I posted it on Airstream Classifieds and had a quick response from a fellow in Orange County CA that wanted it. He drove to the Phoenix area on Sunday and picked it up. He also wanted the padded armrests so I had to fabricate some tops for that area, again out of Pine plywood (see below).
You may notice in the above photo the large piece of wood between the box and chair. This keeps proper spacing for reclining.
All in all the recliners are doing very well. We can spend more time in the living room without too much discomfort. Here is Roxie checking out the setup:
