Rocking Chair Reupholstery: An Overview

I have an old rocking chair that has been in my family for a very long time. My mother purchased it at an estate auction after her great-aunt Agnes passed away. "Aunt Agnes," as we all refer to her, lived with her mother (my great-great grandmother) in the middle of town. By all accounts, parties at the Brinkels' were legendary. They had money, a large house in the middle of Ottawa--the county seat of Putnam County, Ohio--and enjoyed entertaining.

When my great-grandfather Charles came back from WWI (already a widower because his first wife had passed away from the "weak heart" that she had dealt with since birth) he was invited to attend a party at the Brinkel house. According to my Mom, Aunt Agnes announced shortly after that first party that "Charlie" would someday marry her... but instead he wed her older sister, Mary. (See the footnotes for an explanation of the photograph to the left.)

Agnes would live out the rest of her days as a spinster in that home, the house where she grew up, passing away in 1972 at the ripe old age of 85. My mother probably just could have asked for the chair and it would have been given to her... but she chose to attend the auction, looking to bid on some memorable thing that belonged to her great-grandmother. Mom had always liked this chair, and ended up paying, she thinks, less than $20 for it.

The chair had what we think was its original covering, black leather upholstery, at the time that she purchased it. The leather wasn't in the greatest of shape and the springs inside needed to be retied as well. Mom and Dad were not yet married, but they were dating and my maternal grandmother had a side business reupholstering furniture and doing sewing--including making wedding dresses from scratch--out of her home.

So Grandma supervised the first reupholstering job on this chair, which you can probably guess was done in the early 70s based on the orange velour. Mom and Dad remember Grandma showing them how to tie the springs together correctly, but I'm sure that grandma did most of the fabric work since that's her forte.

When I first mentioned to Mom that I would love to have this rocking chair some day, she surprised me by saying that I could certainly take it with me. I've had it for quite a few years now, and have always intended to reupholster the chair again... but for some reason, Now finally seems like the time to do so. It's probably a combination of the garden winding down and a 50% off decorator fabric sale at Jo-Ann Fabrics.

I brought home a few sample fabrics, including the textured icy blue velvet square you see on the left, before settling on the medium blue cotton ultrasuede that you see draped on the right side of the chair. I don't like most of the prints that are available, and lots of the darker colors look too heavy and masculine with the thick wood arms. The lighter colors just don't hold up well against the wood color, either--or maybe, after seeing this chair in bright orange for over 30 years, I just couldn't handle not seeing a similarly bright color for the next 30!

I still haven't figured out exactly what I'm going to do for the finished edges in lieu of using what I incorrectly referred to as "rickrack." (Grandma advised that I didn't want to ask for "rickrack," because I'd get something different than the kind of trim I want to use for this project.) And I might find some other unpleasant surprises as I tear this thing apart, too--you never know. But I do know that the wooden piece across the front of the seat needs to be redowelled on the sitter's left. As you can see in the photograph, the joint is coming apart a bit.

Weirdly enough, redowelling is the one part of the project that doesn't intimidate me at all... so we'll see how that, and the rest of what will be my first reupholstering project, turns out. Luckily, there are instructions for things like hand-tying springs on the internet these days, and I have lots of resources to call when I come up with questions! I hope to post an update on my progress in the next week or two.

Footnote: This picture shows an old photo of my great-grandfather Charles, a smaller photo of his daughter Rose (not the grandma who reupholsters, but my Mom's mother) and a card that Grandma Rose gave me many years ago. The card is stamped "Made in France," and the flowers on the front are embroidered on thin silk material, surrounded by a gilded oval frame. It always makes me shiver when I open up that card and read, in Charles' pretty script, the heading on the short, "I am well" message. It reads: "September -18, Somewhere in France"