Easy-Going Stretch Recliner Slipcover Review: Fit, Feel and Washing

The first week I had my lift recliner, I set a mug of coffee on the armrest, turned to answer my husband Walt, and knocked it clean over. I got it up with a damp cloth before it set and it never stained, but I sat there the rest of that afternoon thinking about what a second spill would look like after a year of this. That is the whole reason I bought the Easy-Going stretch recliner slipcover in March. It has been on that chair for eight months now, it has been through the wash better than ten times, and I have a fair amount to say about where it fits and where it does not.

Here is the short version if you are in a hurry. The Easy-Going cover is a knit fabric, 80 percent polyester and 20 percent spandex according to the listing, and it pulls on in sections over the seat, the back and the arms. It is soft to the hand, it stays where you put it, and mine has come out of the washing machine the same size it went in. It is also not water resistant, and the listing says so plainly, so a spill goes straight through it onto the chair underneath. If you want a cover that stops a cup of coffee, this is not that, and I will not pretend otherwise. If you want a cover so the chair itself does not take the wear, from crumbs and elbows and everyday sitting, this one does the job.

How I've Used It

I am 72, I live in a one-story brick ranch in Gastonia, North Carolina, and I sit in that chair more than any other piece of furniture in the house. Coffee and the Gaston Gazette on my tablet in the morning, the crossword most afternoons, a nap some days, and television with Walt until about ten. My chair is a MCombo power lift recliner I bought in February, the Medium, because I am 5 feet 4 inches and I measured the space by the window and the doorway before I ordered anything at all. The cover went on in March and it has not come off since except to wash.

I want to be clear about what I am and what I am not. I am not a nurse and I am not a therapist. I am a retired church office worker who reads the tag on everything and measures twice before she spends a nickel. Anything I say here about my chair and my cover is my own experience in my own living room. If you are buying anything that changes how a chair works, or you are getting over a surgery or a fall, ask your doctor or a physical or occupational therapist about fit and safety first. I asked Dr. Patel about the lift chair itself before I bought it, and I would ask again.

What the Easy-Going Cover Actually Is

The fabric is the first thing. Eighty percent polyester, twenty percent spandex, and you can feel the spandex the moment you take it out of the package. It has give in every direction, which is what lets it go over the arms of a chair that is not shaped like a sofa. The listing puts the fit at a total sitting area of 23 to 34 inches. I measured my seat before ordering the way I measure everything, with a cloth tape and a pencil mark on the back of an envelope, and I came out at 26 inches across. That is inside the range the listing gives, with room on either side of it, and it is the reason the seat and back went on snug instead of sloppy. If your chair sits near the top of that range, expect the fabric to work harder than mine does. The pattern is solid, the closure is elastic, and the listing describes the special feature as anti slip, which I was skeptical about and which turned out to be the part that surprised me.

It is also not water resistant. The listing states the water resistance level as not water resistant, and I appreciate a company that says that straight out instead of hinting around it. I have never owned a waterproof recliner cover. I know them from listings and from a friend's chair at church, and if a spill is your main worry, that is the kind of cover you want, not this one. What this one does is keep the chair from getting grubby in the first place. There is a difference between a cover that protects against liquid and a cover that protects against life, and the Easy-Going cover is the second kind.

Fitting It the First Time

We laid all four pieces out flat on the carpet first and matched each one to its tag before either of us touched the chair. Karen wanted to start with the arms. I wanted to start with the seat. We started with the seat, and that was the right call, because the back piece has to tuck down under the seat piece at the bottom and you cannot do that once the arms are on. My daughter Karen lives twenty minutes away in Belmont and she came over to help, mostly because I was not going to be able to get behind the chair and pull at the same time. It took us about twenty minutes the first time, and I would guess one person with good knees could do it in fifteen. The Easy-Going cover comes tagged, with a label sewn into each section, and the ones marked for the arms go on the arms. That sounds silly to say out loud, but it saved us. If you have ever unfolded a fitted sheet and guessed wrong, you know exactly why a sewn-in tag matters.

The seat and the back went on snug, tighter than I expected from something this soft, and it has stayed snug. The footrest is the loose one. The fabric there does not pull as taut as it does across the seat, and it wrinkles a little when the footrest is down. It is not a defect and it has never come off, but if you are the sort of person who straightens a tablecloth when company comes in, you will notice it every time you look down. I noticed for about a month and then I stopped.

Living With It: Lifting, Reclining and the Hand Remote

This is the part I worried about. A lift chair does a thing a regular recliner does not, and a cover that grabs the mechanism or bunches at the hinge would be worse than no cover at all. Before I settled into it, I ran the chair all the way up and all the way back with the cover on and watched every seam. It moved freely. The fabric stretched where it needed to and came back where it should. The first Saturday after it went on, I ran the chair up and back four times in a row while Karen stood there watching, and then I had her sit in it while I ran it again. Nothing pulled anywhere. Eight months on, I still check it every few weeks, and I keep the skirt of the cover clear of the lift mechanism and clear of where the frame rises.

The hand remote is the other thing to think about. My MCombo has a wired remote on a cord, and I keep it in the chair's own side pocket, not under the cover and not in my armchair caddy. There is no opening cut for a cord in this cover, so if your remote lives on the armrest you will be feeding the cord out from under the fabric every time. That is not a deal breaker. It is just a small thing to know before you put it on, so you are not yanking at it afterward and stretching the arm out of shape.

Washing It Every Three Weeks

I wash mine on gentle about every three weeks, which works out to better than ten times since March. It goes in the machine with a couple of towels and nothing else that could catch on it, and I hang it over the shower rod to dry. I have not put it in the dryer. The care instructions say machine wash and I have stuck to that, and I would not gamble a dryer on spandex. It has come back the same size every single time and it has not pilled where I sit, which is the spot I expected to go first.

I did the first wash on a rainy Tuesday morning in April and fretted at it the whole time it hung there, convinced I would come back to a cover that had grown two sizes. It was dry by supper and it went back on the same afternoon with the same amount of tugging as the first time, which is to say not much. The washing is where this cover earns its place for me. I could not wash my old recliner. That was a manual recliner with a side handle, about fifteen years old, and it went to the church yard sale in February. Fifteen years of sitting lives in a chair like that and there is no getting it out. Being able to take the cover off, run it through the machine, and hang it up is worth more to me than any feature printed on the label. It is the plain reason I would buy another one when this one wears through.

I have washed it better than ten times since March, hung it over the shower rod every time, and it has come back the same size and the same fit. That is the whole test I care about.

Who This Is For

This is for someone who has a chair they plan to keep and wants that chair to still look decent in three years. If you eat in your chair, if you have a dog or a cat that sheds, if grandchildren come through with crackers, or if you are simply in the chair six hours a day the way I am, a washable cover changes the arithmetic. It is also for anyone who has looked at the price of a new recliner and decided the chair they already have is fine. Mine went onto a lift chair without interfering with the lift, which was the one thing I could not tell from the listing. There is also the matter of the chair you already paid for. A cover is a small thing next to a new recliner, and it buys you a few more years of not thinking about the upholstery at all.

It is good for a two-person household, too. Walt sits on the couch and I sit in my chair, and the cover means my chair is mine. When the cover gets tired, I buy another cover. That is a far sight easier than reupholstering, and it is easier than arguing.

Who Should Skip It

Skip it if a spill is the thing you are solving for. This cover is not water resistant and it will not stop liquid from reaching the chair. Look at a waterproof cover instead, and know going in that they feel different, more like a plastic tablecloth than like a knit. I would also skip it if you keep a cup in your hand all day and you know it. I learned to set my mug on the side table after that first spill in February, and the cover has not had to prove anything since. Skip it too if your chair is a shape this does not fit. The listing puts the sitting area at 23 to 34 inches, and if yours is outside that, measure again or look at a different product entirely. And skip it if you want a cover you never think about. You will think about this one a little, at the footrest and at the back skirt.

One more thing, and I mean it. If you are putting a cover on a lift chair, run the chair all the way up and all the way back with the cover on before you settle into it, and check that nothing catches anywhere. And if you have had a surgery or a fall, or you are not sure your chair is set up safely for you, talk to your doctor or a physical or occupational therapist first. A slipcover is a piece of fabric. It is not a safety device, and it is not a fix for a chair that is wrong for you.