The chair

Posted by Mark:

So I don’t exactly know what it is about Kimmi and me but we seem to be drawn to the things that are old. Twice we have bought a house that most people would consider “too much work” but something inside of us can look past the shoddy old shells and somehow see exiting possibilities no matter how much work will be involved. Personally, I think it’s just because we’re cheap. We both love vintage stuff that is remodeled/refurbished, but just don’t like the high price tag to go along with it. Therefore we decide to do it ourselves...

Case and point? Our search for the perfect rocking chair.

When one prepares for an upcoming birth of a child you must own a few essentials. Call it nesting, but it becomes almost essential to have the perfect crib, car seat, cute little nursery, AND a good comfortable rocking chair. Kimmi and I knocked off the first few items on the list quite quickly but that rocking chair proved to be elusive. We saw and sat in a lot of chairs but either they were too low in stature or they possessed the biggest negative in my book of having too low of a back. Thus if I imagined myself dozing during the wee hours of the night whilst rocking my son to sleep, my head would inevitably flop over the back or off the side and in turn ruining any chance of ever being comfortable.

The few chairs we did find that met our criteria were either way too expensive or they weren’t rocking chairs at all. Either way we were left without a rocking chair and this was a problem. The child’s arrival grew closer and closer. Finally though after searching KSL classifieds on a daily basis I found this little Gem:


Obviously at first glance it is a tad repulsive. And upon closer examination it appeared to have a few hundred thousand miles of wear and tear. (My favorite being the indistinguishable sign of bite marks ingrained deep into the wood) However even with all its faults we took this little beauty home for three very important reasons. 1) It was super comfortable and had the really high back I was looking for. 2) It seemed like an easy enough job to fix all its imperfections. 3) It was only 40 bucks!

So upon getting it home I got right to work ripping out the old fabric and sanding out the years of imperfections.


Finally after re-staining, refinishing, and the hardest task of all (agreeing on new fabric) we took the chair to a family friend for the final process of reupholstering. So without further ado I give you our rocking chair.


In the end we are extremely pleased with the result and we look forward to many years of enjoyment and use in our new chair.