A Mother’s Day Rocking Chair Surprise

Happy Mother’s Day!

I know. I’m a little late, but that’s not surprising. I’m usually a little late with, well, just about everything.

My Mother’s Day present for my mom this year was not very surprising either. That’s because I texted her the “before” photo of this little rocking chair when I found it a few weeks ago.

My mom texted back that she loved it. (I knew she would.) Then she told me to paint it white for her.

So my mom knew a white vintage rocking chair was coming, but I always have a pretty long paint project to-do list. She didn’t know I would actually finish it on time for Mother’s Day.

Surprise!

Here it is …

I painted the rocking chair with Real Milk Paint, the non-toxic, environmentally-friendly line of milk paint we carry at our shop All Things New Again in Leesburg, Virginia.

Real Milk Paint is our go-to paint for creating a vintage look on furniture. It distresses beautifully with either fine-grit sandpaper or a damp scrubby sponge. Real Milk Paint’s amazing new product called Chippy Paste now gives you better control over creating that wonderful “chippy” look milk paint is famous for.

(You can read more about Chippy Paste here.)

The color of this rocking chair is Soft White. Not surprising, it is the same color my mom used for the china cabinet in her living room and her black and white chippy table. I distressed the rocking chair with a damp scrubby sponge to reveal a little bit of the wood underneath.

 

The fabric I used on the rocking chair came from an old sundress of mine.

Did that surprise you?

I loved this dress back in the day, but it wasn’t looking so flattering on me anymore. And one of the straps broke.

I saved the dress because the skirt was so pretty. I knew I could re-purpose it for something else.

I was just waiting for the perfect chair to come along.

I cut the dress apart, flipped over the rocking chair and stapled the fabric all around the bottom to create a little skirt for the chair. Then I re-covered the floral seat with the remaining fabric.

I made one mistake. I threw away the lining of the dress before I realized the skirt was see-through without it. You could see the batting on the chair seat through the little holes in the eyelet. It didn’t look nice, but the dress lining was long gone. Instead, I cut up one of my husband’s white t-shirts to cover the batting before adding the skirt fabric on top.

Here are more photos of the finished rocking chair.

 

 

My mom loves the chair …

But not as much as I love her! <3

~ Courtney

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All Things New Again is a boutique furniture store and paint studio in Leesburg, Virginia (about an hour or so west of Washington, D.C.)