Grandma's Upholstered Rocking Chair

Do you ever get items handed down to you that don't quite fit your decor, yet you are suppose to keep them  in the family? My grandparents passed away when I was young and my parents stored a lot of the family heirlooms in their home. Now that I am older I have many pieces in my home that bring back memories and/or mean a lot to our family. However, some of these items are either not my style or don't fit the decor in a particular room.

Since I have been redoing our living room a little at a time, I have decided to give my Grandmother's rocking chair a little face lift. The wood is in great condition, so I didn't want to paint it. I have decided to give it an update by reupholstering the seat of the chair.

Remember my fabric plan for the living room? Well I decided to use the yellow Moroccan patterned fabric to recover this chair.

I started by taking out all of the staples that were holding the previous fabric down. And lookey what I found....beautiful ugly 1960's fabric that my grandfather had added to this wonderful chair back in the day!

There were A LOT of staples in this puppy! This step definitely took me the longest. I had to pry the staples up with a screw driver, then pull them out with pliers. Gramps sure liked his staples!
Once all the staples were out, I stuffed the foam back in for some extra support and laid the new fabric on top. Then, taking after grandpa, started stapling my heart out!

Then trimmed off the extra fabric on all sides with my sewing scissors.

Obviously I needed to do something to cover the staples. I mean if you want a rustic feel, I guess you could just keep it as is. Me...not so much. I needed a more tailored look.

I searched around for some decorative piping, but couldn't find anything that didn't look too "traditional". I didn't want the trimming to stand out. So I decided to make the trim out of the same fabric.

I first cut a two inch strip of fabric and folded a half of inch in on both sides and pressed with a hot iron. (wrong sides together)

Then I cut some stitch witchery and placed it down the middle of the strip of fabric.

And pressed closely together with a hot iron. 

The Last step was the fun part....hot glue gun baby! I literally used my hot glue gun to hold the trim in place. I have used this trick before on one of my other upholstery jobs and the trim hasn't moved a bit!

And the Final product:

Not perfect, but neither am I! I love how the fabric really made this beautiful rocker come to life. Hopefully I will be able to use this in a nursery someday. This process was so simple, that I could always recover the seat with new fabric if I ever change out my decor. 

Happy Monday All!

P.S. Have you signed up for this month's giveaway? You haven't?.....well come check out what all the fuss is about HERE.

Weekend DIY- Upholstered Victorian Chair

This past summer I was given this Victorian Chair from my parents:

I remember this chair use to be in my grandmothers home. She was a girly girl and loved pink. Yes...I am a girly girl also, but don't quite care for this faded salmon pink color.

I do however, love the carved details of this victorian beauty.

I decided I was going to tackle recovering this chair on my own. I found this light gray fabric from JoAnns. It was 50% off...so I couldn't resist.

I also thought it went well with the Euro Shams already made out of this dove fabric.

There were so many staples and nails in the chair that I decided to just cover over the pink fabric without trying to take it off. It would have taken me days if I had. I used a hammer to loosen up some staples and took them out so I would have room for the new ones.
{Sorry I don't have pics of the first couple of steps. I lost my blog brain that day.}

I then cut a large enough piece of fabric to cover the chair cushion plus 4 inches. I started stapling the front of the cushion. I had to keep pulling the fabric tight so it wouldn't pucker.

Once I had the whole seat covered and stapled, I trimmed up the sides with a pair of sewing scissors.

It then looked like this:

The seat turned out nice and tight, but the staples were pretty uneven. NO PROBLEM! I knew I was going to be covering them up with some sort of trim. I read many tutorials on how to sew double piping trim. It didn't seem that easy. So...when my mother-in law came to town this weekend, I asked for her help! She is the Sewer of all Sewers!

We decided it would take us all weekend just to do the piping, so we had a new plan of NO SEWING! HA!


We cut an inch and a half wide strip with the same fabric.

Then we tucked both sides over and gave it a good steam with the iron.

The Last step was the most FUN! We hot glued the trim to the chair and covered those ugly staples.

And the Finished Product.......

LOVE IT!

 We didn't even use a sewing machine! Not too bad for amateurs!

Before:                                                                       After:



I am looking forward to adding this little beauty to the Master Bedroom.

Thanks Mom H. for your help! It was a fun project!

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