Front Porch: Columnist is so used to recliner heaven

I don’t know how people can live in any kind of acceptable comfort without a recliner.

Yes, I know, I’m giving my age away here, falling into that cliché of old people and their recliners, losing glasses in the folds of the chair, eating all meals there and ranting at the TV while lying back with slipper-clad feet in the appropriately assumed elevated position.

It’s not quite that bad at my house … yet … but ever since that bad-boy piece of furniture moved in, life hasn’t been the same, and it’s taken a decidedly comfier turn.

It happened back in 2011 after I returned from a trip to Florida. In all (but one) of the homes I visited throughout the state as I caught up with friends and family, I observed that they all had set up what I began to call “recliner rooms,” areas of their homes, often in what we used to call Florida rooms (lanais or enclosed porches to non-Floridians) back in the day. Furniture was grouped around large TVs and, wow, what furniture it was.

One cousin had a humongous curved couch with room for, easily, 10 people on it. Each end was a recliner, and the middle section had a drop-down section that had, among other features, drink holders in it. Another cousin had a slightly less elaborate setup with a series of recliners, appropriately positioned with clear sight lines to the big TV on the wall. Others had different configurations on the theme, but what they all had in common was that all social, dining, recreational and even business activities took place there – with feet elevated.

At first I was a bit smugly amused at the … well, stereotypical retired Floridian-ness of it all. But not everyone was retired and not everyone was financially well off in my Sunshine State group. It was just a way of life. I felt bemused and, frankly, a little superior to it all.

But by the fifth or sixth home I visited, I was beginning to anticipate the next version of reclinerville and began rating the chairs according to my own body type. Some too big, some too small, some just right. But all of them darn comfy.

Hmm, I thought, might we have a place for maybe just one little recliner in our own home?

By the time I arrived back in Spokane, I had already made the mental turn and informed Bruce we should have one. There were a couple of places where one could be placed, but I decided (Bruce was pretty neutral about it all) that it needed to be in the small room adjacent to our kitchen, where I preferred to do my TV watching. Because the room also contained a large rolltop desk, there was just barely enough room to squeeze one in.

And then Bruce, in his own quiet way, mentioned that he might like to join me there, rather than watching from the desk chair, and inquired if there might be a place for him, too. Boy, didn’t I feel like the selfish wife that, in my single-minded focus on joining the recliner club, I clearly was. Trouble was, how to fit two recliners?

Such a First World problem. It was resolved by purchasing a loveseat recliner, one that had enough padding for comfort, but not one of those big overstuffed ones, and we kind of “squoze” it in. My only requirement was a high back, as some of the recliners I’d sampled in Florida didn’t support my head as comfortably as I felt it deserved. (Note: This sense of entitlement comes on way too easily!)

The appropriate piece of furniture was found, delivered and lived in and on ever since. No, really, we actually do so many of those things I secretly made fun of my family for doing. Pretty much every morning, I have breakfast in the recliner as I read the morning paper (Bruce eats earlier than I do, so I’m on my own). I read in the chair. I watch TV from there. We’ve moved the desk out and moved in two other (regular) smaller chairs, so when another couple come over, we often entertain from there (larger groups still retire to the living room). During his offseason (winter), Bruce will often catch a little nap in the recliner in the afternoon.

It does feel good to put the old feet up when watching TV. It makes Bruce’s aching back feel better. We sometimes hold hands while watching a movie together, which is really nice.

But sometimes I kind of want my own space or maybe want to watch something on TV that Bruce isn’t interested in, so he’ll go into the living room to read – in a single-occupancy recliner I bought him for Christmas a few years ago.

You can never have enough recliners, I have come to believe – bits of heaven masquerading as furniture. How did we ever do without them?