In a Nutshell:
It is a stunning design, both beautiful and comfortable. It uses slightly inferior materials, but for the price is an excellent value. Artiva USA Milano Recliner is recommended to (almost) anyone on a budget. The chair is almost “too pretty” for its own good, which might make it harder to fit with more casual home décor schemes.
Value for the Money
Comfort
Aesthetic Flexibility**
Overall Rating
4.2/5
Benefits
Drawbacks
Recommended For: Anyone on a budget. The chair is almost “too pretty” for its own good, which might make it harder to fit with more casual home décor schemes.
Do you suffer from chronic back pain? If so, you’re not alone. A lot of it comes down to poor posture, which is, at least in part, a function of the furniture you own. Most of it is poorly designed and sitting in it will only make your aching back hurt worse.
Fortunately, there’s an answer for that! In recent years, we’ve seen a growing collection of ergonomically designed living room furniture introduced by a variety of manufacturers, and the Artiva USA Milano Recliner is one of these.
If you’re looking for a low-cost ergonomic recliner, and if you want to “buy American,” this is a solid choice, although we’ll be quick to say that it’s not perfect, and it’s not for everyone. Don’t worry; we’ll cover everything this little recliner is and isn’t in the sections that follow so you’ll have all the information you need to decide if it’s the right one for you.
Ready? Let’s get right to it!
An Overview of the Milano Recliner by Artiva USA
The first thing you’ll notice about the Milano Leather Recliner Chair is that it’s, well…gorgeous. Seriously, even though it only ranked as our “Honorable Mention” in our recent roundup review, we’d judge it to be the most beautiful chair of the bunch.
Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and you may not agree, but yeah. Even if you think one of the other models mentioned in the roundup review is better looking, there’s no denying that the Milano is eye-catching, and then some.
Unfortunately, its innate beauty and exquisite design work against it to a degree. Many American households have a fairly casual, informal décor scheme, and if that describes your home, the Milano might look a bit out of place with its modern European styling, sleek lines and rich Mahogany finish with chrome accents.
Its good looks work against it in another way too, in that for all its beauty, the manufacturers used low-quality materials in the construction. Cheap wood veneer and bonded leather, rather than genuine, grain leather.
This is always an agonizing tradeoff. Using high-quality materials would raise the price, and the Milano is aimed at the value segment of the market, so we can’t really fault them for their choice of materials. On the other hand, making such a handsome piece of furniture with lower quality materials seems almost anachronistic to us, but your mileage may vary there.
In any event, the chair measures 32.3” x 29.5” x 42.5”, weighs in at sixty pounds, and is available in three colors: Black, brown, or latte. We’ll have more to say about quality in a later section.
Features of the Artiva USA Milano Recliner
Adjustability & Comfort
Both the chair and its accompanying ottoman are well-padded, with foam, which is reasonably comfortable but not exquisitely so. Still, it’s quite adequate for several hours of TV watching in the evening, although it falls short of being a good napping chair.
Its recline function is rudimentary. It’s not lever-activated, so to recline, you simply grip the chair arms and push back. That’s all there is to it. Simple and functional.
As with many lower-priced chairs, this one swivels on its base like an office chair, but while some of the other low-priced loungers we’ve reviewed (especially the one offered by Flash Furniture, the BT-7862-BK-GG) would be easy to see in the role of an office chair, this one doesn’t really fit that bill. It’s definitely a piece of living room furniture.
Storage & Extras
As with the rest of our value-priced furniture reviews in this section, this will be a short section. Artiva USA’s Milano Leather Recliner Chair doesn’t come with any built-in storage or extras. It’s unfortunate, but again, given its modest price, we weren’t expecting any.
Some Assembly Required
Okay, it’s time to bring the issue of quality up again, and we’ll freely admit, this is a disappointment.
The Milano comes in a big box, and unassembled. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. There are plenty of decent pieces of furniture that require at least some assembly, but most of the ones we’ve seen have better instructions than the Milano comes with.
There are no words with the instructions. Just images, and unfortunately, some of the images are rather cryptic and hard to decipher. While it’s certainly possible to put the chair together by yourself, we’d recommend getting a helper. Between the two of you, it’ll go faster (thirty minutes or so), and you’ll be able to wrestle the pieces into position more easily.
You’ll be glad for the help too, because unfortunately, Artiva has some quality control problems. Nothing that will cause you to have to send the chair back. But, pieces and parts just don’t line up quite the way they should, which means that the Milano requires a bit more brute force and elbow grease to put together than the other low-priced ergonomic loungers we’ve reviewed.
If there’s a silver lining to be found in this part of the equation, it’s the fact that Artiva has solid customer service and support, so if you run into problems, or if something is missing or broken, getting a replacement is easy, and the staff is friendly and helpful.
Pros & Cons of Artiva USA Milano Leather Recliner Chair
We like Artiva USA’s Milano Recliner (and we think you will too!), but we wanted to love it, and we don’t. It’s a good chair. A beautiful chair, and reasonably comfortable too. It’s a solid chair for what it is. A value-priced, fairly comfortable, basic ergonomic recliner.
Unfortunately, it’s got two weaknesses that may cause people to take a pass. The first is the quality of the materials used in construction. Thin wood veneer and bonded leather can be dressed up to look nice, but they just don’t hold up well in the long run. This chair is going to show its age quickly.
That leads to the second problem. Because cheap materials were used in its construction, it’s just not very durable. Even if you’re super careful with it, you’ll be lucky if this chair lasts you five years. Even if it does, it’s going to start showing its age well before then.
Now, you could argue (convincingly) that at the price the Milano is offered at, that’s not such a bad thing, and you’d have a fair point. On the other hand, given how striking the design is, it seems almost a waste to build the chair with inferior materials.
Final Thoughts on Artiva USA Milano Recliner Review
The Milano is an ergonomic lounger that wants to be great, but just…isn’t.
It’s beautiful, fairly comfortable, and reasonably priced, but it’s also made of low-end materials that aren’t going to last you for years to come.
Even so, we do recommend it, for the following people:
If that describes you and what you’re looking for, then this is an awesome chair. The less those bullet points sound like you, the less enthused you’re going to be about the Artiva USA Milano Recliner. Had this model been built with top-quality materials, it would have probably come close to earning a perfect five-star rating from us.
References & Resources
- Artiva USA, Official Brand Website.
- Are Recliners Bad for Your Back?, Furniture Academy.
- Is Your Chair Killing You? The Consequences of Comfort, Daily Beast.
- How Reclining Chairs and Sofas Can Improve Your Health, Get Holistic Health.