Rocking Chair Makeover

Back in May I came across a wonderful little kid's rocking chair at the flea market and I finally got around to recovering the seat.  It took me a little while to pick a fabric for the chair and a little while longer to find my staple gun, but this little beauty was worth the wait!  I took lots of pictures along the way however I feel like you should know, I was winging it.  This means there are probably other ways of doing this "correctly" and I will not be offended if you choose to go another route.  Regardless I am pretty proud of my little chair and think it turned out beautifully!

Here is the chair pre makeover.  It is very sturdy and I love the worn wood so I decided to leave that untouched (though I did wash it).  You can see how badly the seat needed some love.  I went out and found an upholstery fabric I liked and rounded up my staple gun and got to work!

I cut a piece of fabric, leaving plenty of extra to wrap around the bottom of the seat.  If in doubt make it bigger as you can always trim it down later.  Then I laid the fabric down and lined the seat up so the pattern was straight.  I left the original fabric on (because there was about 40 staples holding it down) but you could definitely take the old fabric off.

I stapled down the two longer sides to start.  I made sure to pull the fabric snug but not so tightly it leave indents in the cushion.  I started with a couple staples and checked the fabric alignment before going staple crazy (less to remove if I made a mistake).

Moving on to the ends I did the same thing.  This will leave all the extra fabric at the corners, which I addressed next.

I pulled the fabric on the corners up and pulled tight.  Then I tucked the extra in and made the corner similar to a present.  If you have a shallower cushion you should be able to pull it so the corner is smooth.

I folded the corner so the front of the cushion was smooth with just a little fold on the end.  Once you get it looking nice go ahead and staple.

Repeat with all four corners, keeping the folds on the ends.

Here is the finished end.

Here is the finished front.

Once I put the cushion on the rocking chair you really can't see the little folds on the corners and the front is nice and smooth.  Amelia loves her little rocker and started rocking right away! This was a great find at the flea market and I love the final product.  I hope you found this helpful if you have any questions leave them below.  Have you done any furniture makeovers lately?  I would love to hear about them!