My Weekend Project – Child’s Rocking Chair

On Saturday the girls and I decided to go “treasure hunting” so we headed out to a few thrift stores.  We were in search of items for fun projects to do this week and we found a big one to start working on right away.

Before

This hardwood vintage rocking chair caught my eye and the $4.75 price tag was definitely within my budget.  I walked around the store and mulled it over and after finding nothing else to tempt me I decided to go for it.

After some serious sanding

As soon as we got home my oldest daughter and I got to work with the sander and took her right down to bare wood.  We had to re-glue a couple of loose spindles.  Then we mixed up some leftover white paint with water and painted nice thin layers of paint on it until we were satisfied with the finish. 

We let it dry overnight and Sunday morning we went through the fabric and trim in my sewing room settling on dark blue denim and polka dot ruffled trim.  I made a pattern to mimic the shape of the seat and made a padded seat cushion.  I cut a piece of the trim to make a covered button to sew in the middle and added ties to hold it in place.

Ta-da!

It turned out so cute!  We love the finished product and we are pretty proud of ourselves.  Now we are anxious to look for another piece that needs some love and a chance at a new life.  What fun to find and rehab a viable piece of furniture and because we had everything we needed to fix it up we didn’t have to expend any more cash to do so.  Final price - $4.75!