Ginger & The Huth: The Hideous Broken Glider

Before Hayden was born we spent time looking for some kind of glider for the nursery. All of the gliders we came across seemed way too expensive for something we didn't really really love. So, we were super excited when we found a glider for $19.00 at Goodwill!

The catch: The rocker wasn't rocking correctly due to two missing bolts, we hated the color of the wood, and finally, the most terriible part, the pads. Ugly faded and stained.

Gross.

We decided that for $19.00 we would trek to Home Depot in search of the missing bolts, re-finish the chair, and I would try my hand at reupholstering the cushions.

The first thing we did was take apart the glider, sanded it down with 220 grit paper, and applied wood conditioner (we used Minwax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner).

Next, we applied one coat of Minwax Oil-Based Dark Walnut Wood Stain and two coats of Minwax Polyurethane (we sanded with 220 grit inbetween poly coats). If you remember from staining our Benchright Bench, the stain took forever to dry since we had horrible humidity in the South. The directions said it would take about 4 hours to dry.. Not the case for us, we waited a few days (ridiculous). Hopefully now that we're in Washington dry time will drastically decrease.

After the stain was dry we put the chair back together. . . The first time we put the bottom on backwards. We didn't figure out we'd put it on backwards until I was rocking in it and fell over backwards. Imagine an 8 month pregnant lady turtled on her back. I was not a happy camper, but I'm pretty sure the scene must have been pretty funny. Luckily I had JG to help un-turtle me.

Staining and repairing the chair was the easy part. The real question was if I could sew new covers for the ugly denim pads.

At first I was full of confidence, but then I started ~~panicking~~ wondering how expensive it would be to just buy replacement pads. I was really surprised at how expensive pads were (in the neighborhood of $80-$100)! Expensive!! ANNNND you really don't have that great of a color selection (beige, gray, brown, black, blah, blah, etc.). So, after looking around we decided making our own covers was worth a try. . .

Would I consider myself a seamstress? Errhhmm. . . maybe? My grandma taught me very very basic sewing techniques as a little girl.... So, from my grandmothers guidance from 14ish years ago I feel I can confidently say, that I at least know how to thread a machine and make it go... That's about it. I was able to find THIS tutorial on how to recover a glider, and with that as my guidance I moved forward with the sewing project. . .

First (and most important), we had to decide which fabric to pick. . This was tough because we weren't sure if we wanted to make this our first accent color piece, or if we wanted to stick with our basic white/gray/dark walnut color scheme....

These were our finalists for fabrics:

JoAnn's


JoAnn's (Dorris Fav)

JoAnn's (JG Fav)

We ended up compromising on:

JoAnn's

Fortunately this pattern was 60% off, so about $11.99 per yard. If you watch coupons at JoAnn's it seems like they always have some type of coupon/sale going on so I think if I had been better with timing I could have paid a little less.

The tutorial I followed estimated needing about 3 yards of fabric, since I didn't have any arm pads to cover I took some rough measurements of the back/seat pad and decided two yards would work.

For the bottom pad:
I started by carefully ripping the seams out and marking the creases and seam lines with a sharpee. Considering how faded the pad was I'm not sure how necessary the sharpee markings were.

After ripping the seams, take the fabric and use it as your pattern. I secured each piece with straight pins and traced around the pieces, marked where the pleats were located, and also marked where the original hem was with a fabric pen.

Next I cut the pattern out, matched up the pleats (made sure the pleats were pinned in place), and secured the top and bottom piece with straight pins.

I matched up the pleats on both pieces of fabric sewed around the edges (minus the back so I could stuff the cushion back in). I did a straight stitch and then a zig zag stitch through the straight stitch.

As for closing up the back; the tutorial I followed used a blind stitch... I have no idea how to do that so I just sort of flew the seat of my pants and did it very carefully by hand (nobody see's the back of the pad anyways ;-) ). Before closing the back I pinned the Velcro straps where I wanted them and sewed them on while closing up the back.

For the upper pad:
I ripped the seams including the indented seams, carefully marking where the stitches had been with my Sharpie. Again I used the fabric as a pattern securing each piece with straight pins and tracing around them. I sewed both pieces together (make sure to place your Velcro straps before sewing everything up) leaving the bottom open to re-stuff the foam pad. I used pins to mark where the indents in the foam were. I then used an upholstery needle and upholstery thread to sew the indents in. After all that I closed the upper pad up via hand stitching (once again flying by the seat of my pants).