09 November 2010

Drab to Fab: Reupholstered Rocker


Just after we told my parents we were expecting, they gave us this beautiful rocker. It's super nice, but I wasn't crazy about the light colored fabric. We had it in our house for a few weeks and it already started looking dirty.

With my mom's blessing, I set my mind on recovering it, and it turned out pretty dang cool. This baby was tons of work! I love the brown corduroy though, I think it will hold up much better.


I found an amazing tutorial here. I basically seam-ripped all the covers open and used the original fabric as patterns. This way, I got a nice tight fit. I used a washable pencil to outline, then cut it out with my rotary cutter.



The hardest part was keeping the original snaps in tact. For the arm pieces, I just kept the original cushions and made slip covers for them. Then I made slits for the snaps and tacked them in place. 

There was a lot of hand needlework too. Especially the main back cushion. I had to blind stitch all the cushions closed. I'm really good at my blind stitch now.

The foot rest was easy (peasy). Just broke out my handy staple gun and pulled the edges tight.


So pretty. 
A beast to finish, but pretty.

6 comments:

  1. wow. how did you get the design sewn into the back resting area?
    that looks really good! and corderoy is nice and sturdy. it should hold up to many days and nights of rocking babies.

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  2. that's amazing, mary. good job! I've wanted to re-do the one in marshall's room so this perfect!

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  3. I had to hand sew the seams in. Rob read the Hunger Games to me while I did it :) If you check out the link to that tutorial, it explains it better.

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  4. Mary, you never cease to amaze me!! You DO what I dream about doing. You are awesome and I love your blog. Cracks me up when I read it.

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