Pretty Woman (rocking chair version)

Want to know how we transformed this....

Into this!!!

Well let me tell you how that beat up chair ended up in our hands in the first place and why I name it my Pretty Woman. I arrived home from work and entered the patio as I always do but this time I was greeted by a used and abused rocking chair. It looked like it had been dragged down way too many alleys, taken a beating and god knows what else but miraculously kept on kicking. On the chair was a post it that read SURPRISE!!! Most people would have thought to themselves WTH?? Who left this trash in my patio??!! And thrown the chair in the dumpster, never to be seen again. But not me, and that's why my husband saved it for us to bring it's SEXY BACK!! I was excited to say the least, I had been talking about getting a rocking chair for a while and now we had a chance to customize our own. Just like Mr. Gear saw the beauty in a hooker and transformed her into a lady, we were going to transform this beat up chair into our own Pretty Woman.  

My husband later explained he had found the chair abandoned on the street by our place, so he dragged it back and left it in the patio with the note for me to find. LOL I wish I was there to see him and photograph the scene, maybe next time. Anyway, the chair originally had a woven seat and backing but it was torn in so many places we decided to rip it out. We were left with the bare bones and now it was time to sand the chipped paint and fill any nicks and holes with some wood filler. Some pieces were splint so wood glue was necessary, after leaving the clamps on for 24 hours we we're able to remove them and repeat the sanding and filling about two more times.  

Now we had to create a seat and backing since the chair originally had woven ones. We needed a little help and my dad is the best handy man I know, he has more tools than I can count. Lucky us, now we just needed to measure the sections and cut out the pieces with an electric wood saw. The wood cutouts came out perfect!! Well not at first, it actually took a few times but we got there eventually.  

We painted the frame a flat black, took about two cans of primer spray paint then two cans of flat black paint (99 cents for the primer and $6 for two cans of spray paint). We knew the chair painted black would have a sleek look along with the fabric we had chosen. 

 We purchased foam at a shop in downtown Santa Ana called A-1 Foam & Fabrics.  $2 bucks for each piece of foam and $5 for some spray adhesive, chair was free... so far so good.  I went to a couple of places to check out some fabric and I finally decided on the black with gold floral stitching piece.  It caught my eye and I ended up spending a little more than I had originally planned ($18 per yard, I only needed one so it worked out) but since the chair was free I figured, why not?!  :)  My mother helped me create a sleeve for the back, that way it fit snug like a glove. We upholstered the seat with a staple gun and now we had all the pieces to build the chair back together.  The hard work paid off, couldn't be more happy with the results. 

MEEERRRCCCYYYY.... 

Much Love, V&L