WOWW!!!!

Beautiful! Great fabric.

That looks so awesome! Definitely makes me feel like a slacker in my chair redo!

Amazeballs!

Love it!!

Beautiful! Great fabric choice.

Excellent fabric choice! Glad that you didn't paint the wood either!

LOOOOOVE!

Great job and great choice of fabric!

Gorgeous fabric, and look at that piping! So well done. Bravo.

I would be ECSTATIC to find a rocker with lines like that ! Beautiful work, Joy.

Beautiful work!

Absolutely Fabulous!!!

Wow!!! I agree, Dwell Studio is pretty fantastic.

Any chance for more details on how you recovered the rocker? I could totally not do that DIY!

Oh my gosh, it's beautiful!

WIN.

Agreed - totally lovely!

GREAT find, even BETTER work!! Well done, it's brilliant!

well done, simply gorgeous!

Great lines, nice fabric!

What is the paint color on the rocker? Love it.

this looks lovely! I clicked through, expecting it to be some crafty-floral-vintage-mess, but you did a wonderful job. great lines and perfect fabric choice.

Wow! Was this DIY? It looks so pretty!

Stunning.

BEAUTIFUL! I have rocker-envy :)

Wow! Well done!

wasnt expecting to see the after when I did, so it garnered a very outloud "OH MY GOD!". that's a GREAT job!!! well done!

Well done. The welting looks great.

Did you take an upholstery course to acquire skills before tackling this?

That looks awesome. Also, when were rockers ever out? They seem like the most versatile furniture to me...

Lovely re-upholstering job. It really helps that the original lines of the rocker were so good to begin with. Great work!

So amazing! WOW!

Fantastic! Love the fabric; you did a great job.

I love this transformation .... COOL

Fess up! This was NOT your first upholstery project, was it??? (Come on, don't make the rest of us feel inadequate!)

what a great score for 4 bucks and the transformation is lovely...

Rockin' new chair! Nice Fabric choice.

AMAZING. Well done!

Love it!

I was wondering of the skill level one would have to have to tackle this too! It looks like something that a novice upholsterer couldn't do without guidance.

Love the change.

WOW. The refurb and actually just finding it for that price to start with!

Great job. If the truth be known, this is a very DIY-able upholstery job. There are only three pieces, seat, inside back and outside back. They're pulled evenly, attached next to the wood frame. Attach the covered buttons prior to attaching the back piece. Make welt cord, cut off the excess lip close to stitching and hot glue in place. Patience and careful smoothing and pulling of the fabric is the secret.

it's awesome. I'm jealous!

Stunning!

Thanks for all the feedback and kind words! I was really blown away. I am by no means a professional, and most of my projects are very intuitive. I haven't taken any classes, just experimented and learned things by trial and error.

As ModHomeEcTeacher mentioned, this was actually a pretty simple job. In fact, it was only two pieces, not even three. The most time-consuming part was actually removing the old fabric and the tacks that held it on (with a flathead screwdriver and 5-in-1 spackle tool). I had to be careful to not damage the wood while prying out the old tacks. Once the old fabric was off, I had to remove some layers of disintegrating foam. I laid on what seemed a sufficient layer of batting (more on the seat than on the seat back) and then draping the fabric and putting in a tack or staple to hold it in place while I adjusted other areas. Since I was using a repetitive pattern, I had to make sure that it was straight along the top of the chair so as to not get a crooked pattern. I started around the top-front of the seat back and then basically just wrapped the fabric, down the front and up around the back of the rocker, tacking as I went. Once I reached the top-back of the rocker seat back, I sewed a piece of welting along and then stitched it in between the start of the fabric to finish it off (you can't see this part in the picture since it is on the back).

Going back one step, I did attach the covered buttons (covered with the same fabric) to get the tufted effect before pulling the fabric to cover the back of the seat. This ensured the the tufting wouldn't show on the back of the chair. It just gave it a nice finished look.

I hammered the tacks about 1/8-1/4" from the edge of the fabric, because it would eventually be covered by the welting. I was able to re-use the original black tacks that held down the old fabric. They were perfect because they were so sharp. I used a tack hammer for sufficient control in the small space so as not to damage the wood. Sometimes I even covered the wood with a thin piece of plastic while I hammered, to protect it.

I basically covered the seat the same way as the seat back, except there was not need to wrap the fabric under the chair. I just staple- gunned it underneath the front of the seat and the back of the seat, and then tacked along the edges as mentioned above.

Finally, to make the piping, I covered 3/8" cording with my fabric. (btw, fabric.com is an excellent, inexpensive resource for many different sizes of cording). After sewing the cording, I cut close to the stitching to hide any raw edges, and then hot glued the piping to cover the tacks all along the sides and bottom of the chair. I tried Aileen's tacky glue, but definitely liked hot glue better, although I had to do it very slowly and carefully to avoid getting too much glue or making too many hot glue strings. I seemed very well and didn't show at all when it was said and done. It was a very rewarding project that was not difficult, just a little time consuming.

Thankfully, I didn't have to paint the wood of the rocker. It came with a beautiful espresso brown finish that I really liked.

It is hard to explain everything without diagrams, and I have never blogged about the breakdown of my projects before, so just let me know if any of it was confusing and I'll do my best to clarify :)

Someone also had asked about the wall color. My husband and I picked a very neutral grey from Duron's extensive color pallette called "mindful grey" and a lighter shade of it "repose gray" for our entry and hallway. We are SO happy with it because it is not too warm or cool. Definitely works with charcoal grays or more earthy browns and looks amazing with bright white trim and pops of bright color.

Looks amazing!
My name is also Joy, I bought a really cool rocker at the DAV for $5, and now I can't wait to re-upholster it!

but the piping...isn't that part hard? amazing job.

Joy, thank you for that incredibly insightful and detailed comment. The instructions are quite clear :-)

AT mods: any way you can highlight the quality of the response so that more people can see it?

Okay, I just thought I'd seen the best makeover on AT. But this is right up there tying for 1st place. Very well done.

love this ... i just re did my grandparents rocking chair as well ! over 50 years old and still going strong !

The rocker, ... rocks!