Need some advice regarding recliners. Have read all the previous posts I could find and am still at a loss.

My wife and I are retired. We downsized to a condo in August 2009. Just the right size for us, but living room is not large. When we did our downsize, we replaced some of our furnishings. For the most part, we're happy with our furniture decisions with one exception - the sofa. We could not find a sofa that we were totally happy with so, after months of searching, we settled on an inexpensive Berkline reclining leather sofa (paid less than $1,000), recognizing that we'd probably have to replace it at some point. Well, the time to replace it came quicker than expected. The sofa, which had relatively firm seating at purchase, is now soft and sagging. Neither my wife or I are heavy (me - 180 lbs, my wife 120 lbs). We both prefer very firm seating and the current condition of the sofa is not tolerable for much longer.

We're considering replacing our sofa with two recliners even though it seems kind of strange to us to have a living room without a sofa. We both definitely want recliners and we're running into the same problem we did several years ago finding something that is comfortable and has some durability. Here's a list of our criteria, ranked from most important to least important. We already recognize we cannot find something that meets all the criteria. Maybe someone out there can point us in the right direction, although I suspect we've looked at most of the options already.

1. Seat bottoms MUST be very, very firm and the firmness should last more than a year or two. Ideally, the recliner has seat cores that can be replaced when they do deteriorate, as all seats will given enough time.

2. Opening and closing MUST be relatively easy. Would consider power as an option but prefer manual. We understand that power apparently limits ability to get some of the other features listed below.

3. Fabric preferred, but leather ok.

4. Rocker recliner or glider recliner is not a must have, but is desirable.

5. Willing to pay a premium price for something that meets our needs, but within some range of reasonableness.

6. A recliner that can be positioned reasonably close to the wall is desirable, but understand that having a rocker or glider mechanism requires more distance from wall and we are willing to accept further distance if necessary.

7. Swivel is another nice feature, but not mandatory.

A few additional comments. I like the Ekornes stressless recliners, but they do not match the style of our home (which is more traditional) and do not recline far enough back for my wife. We looked at Hancock & Moore, which are pretty pricey and also to old-looking and stodgy for our tastes and decor. We looked at FlexSteel and could get a lot of what we wanted with that brand(you can order higher density seat cores as an option), but my wife found the opening and closing difficult for her. We tried a flexsteel with rocker and power, but the power mechanism was not smooth when it was combined with the rocker option. Myself, I'd get the power flexsteel without the rocker option, but my wife would really like rocker or glider if at all possible. We have a La-Z-Boy store in our area, but found the seats in all their recliners way too soft.

That's about it. Any suggestions.

This post was edited by TEL51 on Mon, Jan 14, 13 at 13:37