Here is the story of a very lovely bentwood rocker belonging to our friend Adam. Adam let us borrow this rocker when Juniper was first born. If you ever rocked in a bentwood rocker, you know the magic: the deep, smooth rock. The comfortable high back, perfect for resting a weary head. And the low armrests, so ideal for nursing a long baby. We loved rocking Juniper in this rocker. But Adam got the rocker used, the caning was old and brittle, and one day when Ryan sat down to rock baby Juniper, the caning gave out. Don’t worry; no one was hurt except the chair. A large hole in the seat rendered our favorite rocker unusable. How very sad indeed.
So it’s been on my to-do list to fix the hole in Adam’s bentwood rocker. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to cane. Nor do I really want to learn at this time. I should mention that somewhere along the line, Adam gave us the rocker to keep forever. Thank you, Adam! But back to my conundrum: how to fix the chair without recreating the original caning. I thought maybe I’d turn the seat into something solid, cushioned and covered, if I found the right fabric. When I saw Waverly’s upholstery fabric “Solar Flair” on super-sale at Jo-Ann’s, I knew it was the one and could then visualize our redeemed rocker. So another redo project began.
And here’s how we did it. First Dad and I took the seat off the rocker. I ripped out all the caning and touched up the wood on the rocker and the seat frame with a dark brown permanent marker. Once this was totally dry, I treated the wood and remaining caning with lemon oil, cleaning, hydrating and polishing all at once.
Dad cut a piece of wood to fit, routered the edges, and cut additional corner pieces for sturdy assembly. I bought half a yard of 1 1/2″ foam from Jo-Ann’s (with a 50% off coupon, of course) and cut it the same size as the new seat.
I sat at Grandma’s sewing machine (mine is lost somewhere in the chaos we call storage) and created the piping out of the new fabric and about a yard of soft, skinny rope.
Together Dad and I stretched the fabric over the foam and seat and stapled, stapled, stapled. We put the piping around the edge and attached it with more staples. Then, using his drill, we secured the upholstered part to the original seat frame, put the whole mess back on the rocker, and – presto – a brand new rocking chair.
I love this story! I’m happened to read it in my cane rocker, which, as legend has it, belonged to my great-great grandmother (possibly a brother or sister). Your work looks great. Love the fabric!
Hi! What kind of wood did you use? Is it just like 1/2in. plywood?
Thanks!!
angellsworth at gmail
I’ll tell you, the piping makes this project – clean, tailored, loved. Thanks. I have a cane-blown seat on mine and this helps. Is Dad free for a weekend? Haha
[…] and upholstered it in a light spring green fabric. There’s a good photo tutorial on how to retrofit a seat on a bentwood rocker here, and you should look at her photos because mine are much less precise. I fear there’s […]
Did you cut the plywood to fit up to the channel where the cane was attached or to fit inside the hole? Did you add the piping to hide channel where the cane was attached? Thank you!!
If I remember correctly, there is a lip just under where the caning was attached, around the edge. We made the wood sized to lay atop this lip. Maybe your rocker is different? The piping was just to give it a finished look. Hope this is helpful!
Thank you for doing this lovely and informative posting. Yes, I’m getting my 50 yo out of storage, left there because of the busted seat. And I hadn’t known that it could be replaced with a pretty upholstered seat instead. (Original owner, too.)