Redo A Rocking Chair With Spray Paint And Fabric, step by step

That is right. I broke out the word dastardly. And I know we should be hard at work on our office cabinets, but that is a big job (aka: a weekend job – perhaps even a two-weekend job) and I have been giving this rocker the stink eye since November (yes, even before we moved). For anyone who cannot even remember that far back (me), here is a recap: I originally picked it up off of Craigslist for $25 because I truly liked the plain lines of it. Then it sat untouched for over nine months until this weekend.

Why? Well, no sooner had I gotten it home than I realized I had no earthly idea how to reupholster it. At all. I mean I knew how to do the bottom (I have redone seats before) but the hole at the top fully confounded me because it had to look wrapped up on both sides. Le yikes.

But I posted this call for assist a while back and a bunch of you folks were excellent! I certainly learned that there were likely about ten ways to skin that cat (gross expression, sorry – but it was comforting to hear that even some quite experienced folks described many distinct ways I could “go”). So it gave me the confidence to tackle it right away put it off for nine months and begrudgingly give it the old college try over the last few days.

I will disclaimer this whole process much like when aliens took over my body and I made a quilt for Clara, which is to say: I went rogue. I took in all the advice from you folks along with some google pointers and some suggestions from a reupholstering-fiend friend of mine… and simply played it by ear and did what seemed to work as I went along. So with that out of the way, allow me to share the madness that is Me vs. Rocker. Which is not to be confused with Man vs. Wild (Bear Grylls I am not).

Oh and because this process was so involved, it in fact took me a few days of work. Which meant it was a multi-phase thing involving plenty o’ pics. So I broke it right down the middle for ya (since 40 pics in one long rambling post = madness that even we cannot endorse). So here is the first half. And the second half is in the hopper for tomorrow (still have to snap some after pics for ya, but it is nearly all set).

Anyway, here is how it all went down: First I gave my rocker the stink eye one last time. You know for old time’s sake. Then I got to work pulling staples and nails out of the frame along with the ratty old upholstery to see what I was dealing with.

Oh and my pointer would be to use a small channel lock pliers to pull things out. It was much easier than the back of a hammer or a needle-nosed pliers for me (although I still had to pull like crazy, this gripped better so I did not go flying backwards after tool slippage).

After about an hour I had a pleasant little pile going on. But I was only about 30% done.

So I kept pulling old nails and tacks for a few more hours, and then took out the two wood seat slats and was left with this:

It was a fairly ugly sight for three-ish hours of work. And I knew I had some serious wood puttying and sanding to do when it came to the frame (to get it ready for some rich dark stain). But I was tired. So I chose to move onto a less strenuous step that I figured I could not mess up. Upholstering the weird little two-pieces-of-wood seat. First I chose to tape them together so I could upholster it as all one thing (as opposed to two with a weird little seam). I simply used some delicate surface painting tape because it did not need to be especially heavy duty stuff (like sticky duct tape) because I knew once the batting and fabric were in place they’d hold it together for the long haul.

Then it was time for a bunch of layers of extra-loft batting. I used “Soft N Crafty” from JoAnn, which I purchased back in November when I thought I was going to tackle my chair (kind of embarrassing that I then simply packed it up and moved it and it continued to sit around untouched for 8+ months, but whatever). I knew I could have used a big piece of foam for the seat, but I in fact prefer wood seated rockers like this (John’s mom has the most comfortable one ever) so I chose I did not want too much cushion goin’ on. But I also knew that staple gunning one layer of extra loft batting around the back was not going to do much…

… so I applied a second layer…

… and then a third, fourth, and fifth. By the end it was plush without being especially sink-in squishy, which I liked. Pleasant and firm with a bit of softness.

Here is the point where I hoped to throw everything out the window. Yup, after five layers of batting applied staple by staple, I realized that the seat needed to be able to bend to fit past the arms and legs and in fact lay flat on the base.

So I nearly broke down with visions of having to restaple five layers o’ batting after separating the two pieces of wood so they could hinge forward for simply a second to be slid into place. Thankfully my sweet husband (who I consistently describe as the brains of this operation) pointed out that I did not have to unstaple anything and could simply turn the seat over and cut the yellow tape that was running across the back and the batting should be flexible sufficient to fold forward (it was not like I was trying to stretch it backwards or anything).

Worked like a charm. And apparently I was so excited I took this fully crooked picture in celebration:

Then it was time to reupholster my seat. I was especially excited about the “Kravet Design” remnant fabric that I found on clearance at JoAnn for… wait for it… $2 a yard (I got two yards for $4). At the time that I grabbed it I had no idea what I’d use it for, but after woefully glancing up at my biggest failure (Mr Rocker, sitting untouched in the sunroom for nearly a year) I realized that the fabric would look truly fairly on it (with some rich dark stain to set it off). The pattern of my fabric meant that I would have to take the time to center it before stapling anything, so here I am roughly folding it around the seat to try to find a center line and see how it might look in place:

Then I flipped everything over and simply shot one staple into the top middle and one staple into the bottom middle (while pulling things tight). This way I could flip it back over and ensure that I was indeed still centered (and if I was not I simply had two staples to pop out with a flat head screwdriver.

Happily, I was right on track, so I pulled things tight and shot another staple through the middle of each side of the seat, simply so it was being held firmly at the noon, three o’ clock, six o’ clock, and nine o’ clock positions. Then I kept the fabric firmly pulled and continued to staple all around the rest of the perimeter. When it came to the carved-out corners, I simply folded the fabric like I was wrapping a present – again being sure to pull things taut and use a few staples to hold my folds in place (so it would look pleasant and smooth from the front).

Here is what it looked like from the back when I was all done with my staple job:

And here is what it looked like from the front. Purty, right?

Then I shoved it back into the seat to make sure the batting and fabric still allowed the seat to hinge forward a little bit to squeeze in. Whew, it still worked. And in the distance I heard angels singing.

Then it was time for the strenuous frame-readying step. I used wood putty to fill some of the holes that might be visible (like the ones under the seat along the front of the chair’s framing) and sanded everything to rough it up and ready it for some rich dark stain. Since I had some liquid deglosser on hand I gently swiped that over the whole chair after some rigorous sanding (I used low grit paper followed by higher grit paper to smooth everything out).

This is when I was forced to face the music: stain, even dark stain, would not make this chair look as flawless and something opaque like a rich deep coat of paint. Because even after all that putty, sanding, and deglossing, it was looking so inconsistent in certain areas that I knew it would not soak up stain evenly. Boo. And although some folks would not dream of painting wood, we are certainly ok with it (especially since this is simply a $25 cragislist find and not a family heirloom). So I threw my rich dark stain idea out the window and ran to the arms of an old friend. You guessed it: ORB.

I am telling you, my name is Sherry and I am addicted to oil-rubbed bronze spray paint. But thanks to having a pleasant built-in primer and applying three quite thin and even coats, it in fact took on the look of a rich dark wood (and had more dimension than plain old chocolate paint thanks to the subtle metallic quality of the finish). Here is a picture that I snapped after two coats (you can see that it is not fully seamless and even yet- but the third coat did the trick).

Oh and you can find more general spray painting pointers here (lightly misting it while keeping your arm moving all the time is key).

And because I hate to end on that poorly shot, blown out, two-coats-out-of-three spray painting pic, I thought I’d fast forward a little to give you a glance at Part Two of The Glee Project The Rocker Project. Here she is (not fully wrapped up, but getting there). I will be back with more details of that whole shebang (and some final after shots) for ya tomorrow.

Update: A sweet commenter (thanks Laura!) simply told us that our chair fabric was in fact on the cover of the Ballard Designs catalog, so we hopped over there and learned they in fact sell a chair that is upholstered in exactly the same fabric for $600-800 (depending on the finish of the chair) and the fabric is being sold on its own for $32 a yard!

What about you folks. Do you have any projects that you’ve put off for an epically long time? Is there something that intimidates you, like two-sided upholstery does to me? Are you fully unsurprised that I in short try to solve every problem in my life with ORB? Can you believe that darn seat would not fit on the chair after five layers of batting-stapling? At that point I truly hoped to set the whole thing on fire.

Reference: https://www.productexpert.com/best-ergonomic-office-chairs/.