Things I Make - Chilren's Rocking Chair

BEFORE

This was an ugly little rocking chair I bought from a garage sale for a dollar. It was literally falling to pieces, but I thought it might be cute with a little work.  I was pretty much wrong about that.  It needed a LOT of work.  Which required me to stand in my 102 degree garage with sweat dripping off the tip of my nose while I tried to figure out how to remove the rusted bolts.  Eventually, I worked them all loose and decided to paint this dark wood.

I actually really like dark wood, but this was in pretty bad shape and really needed to be freshened up if a tiny hiney was ever going to want to sit in it again.


Unlike the telephone bench, this took much less paint to cover than I thought it would. But I was only going for a shabby look, not a full coverage painting job, so that made it simple to just use up a partial can of white spray paint.  I really love it when I use up partial cans of stuff.

For the cushion, I wanted to use some of the embroidery linens I find so often. I decided on a dresser scarf that was stained on one end, but had this large basket of flowers for it's main design.  The cotton was a little thin, so I reinforced it with an old cotton huck towel.  I starched and ironed the fabric, sewed the towel to the the dresser scarf, and stapled it to the seat of the rocker.

AFTER

After stapling the seat cover on, I had to poke some holes in the sides to fit the bolts back into place.  I used a sharp, long screw, but a small screwdriver would probably work too.

And that is how the ugly gold and brown rocking chair became the cute, shabby chic rocking chair.