Saturday, November 11, 2017

Reclaiming My Husband's Childhood Rocker for our Grandson


You know how you have stuff that's "around" your house? You do, right? You have yucky furniture or an old lamp that needs to be rewired but it got tucked away years ago and fell out of your brain. Are you with me? Then something happens or you see a Pinterest photo and you remember.

Good. I knew you were my people. 

When our grandson was born my husband dug his childhood rocker out of the attic and sat it in the studio. It had some fabric his mom had safety pinned on to cover the original rush seat which had rotted through. And it was really dirty from being in the attic for 50+ years.

FIFTY PLUS YEARS, Y'ALL!



Oh, and I'm  pretty sure it was painted with lead paint. 

It needed some love. I wondered if red was the original color or if it had been painted.


Then my husband found a box of old 8 mm film from the early 60s and he spent a couple of weeks going through them. Guess what he found on one of them.



Yep. Film of him wearing a cowboy hat and sitting in the red rocker! Confirmation on the original color!


Also in the box were films of another family and through the magic of the internet he tracked down those sisters who were little girls in the film and shipped the film of their parents' vacations, visits to Graceland, and Easter dresses to them. I don't care what else is happening you can't tell me this is not a great time to be alive. 

Okay, back to the rocker. I chose Miss Mustard Seed Tricycle for the color and decided to wet sand it with hemp oil for a smooth finish and a safe product to come in contact with my grandson's skin.


This is where my kids like to point out that I did things when they were little like put them to sleep face down in our waterbed. Blah. Blah. Blah. You're alive aren't you? 

If you are concerned about the toxins in paints you are using Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint is a great choice for you. Milk paint has been used for thousands of years and only has 5 ingredients.


You can use Miss Mustard Seed's Beeswax for a finish but I chose hemp oil because I wanted to try wet sanding for a smooth finish.


I was looking for someone to recane the seat when my boss and friend Me & Mrs. Jones suggested strips of fabric.


Ack! Why didn't I think of that? I even had THE PERFECT fabric leftover from the Scandinavian inspired elf dolls I made last year for Christmas.


I love all things Scandinavian, read about my obsession here.



This just involved cutting strips of fabric and tying them on the rails across then doing the same thing the opposite direction weaving the strips like you did when you made that potholder in elementary school.



Easy peasy.


Here's what it looks like all finished!









2 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness. love it. and I love the old film reel. I need to see if my dad still has our old movies...I doubt it. He had a bit of a tantrum a few years after my mom passed away and dumped a bunch of stuff, and probably what wasn't dumped was stored improperly. :(

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  2. Thanks so much! Oh my goodness! I hope you still have them, somewhere... Our films were just in a closet in a shoebox so definitely not stored in any way that would have preserved them. Everything about it seems so precarious though. The projector looks like every time will be the last one and the film looks like it will snap any minute. It's amazing it exists at all.

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