1. The first thing I did was remove the seat base and the back base part from the actual rocker, to make it easier to paint and reupholster them.
2. I then just used a couple old paper bags and cut them to the size of both the front and bottom part of the seat and back. Using painters tape, I taped them down securely, just along the edges of the caning (making sure not to tape over any of the actual wooden part). This part isn't necessary, but I didn't want to risk the paint drying the caning out and having it break or split on me, later on.
3. I don't have a picture of this next step, but all I did was sand down the entire rocking chair, seats and all. Then put out a giant tarp on my backyard patio deck and laid down the seat, back piece, and rest of the actual rocking chair. (I found it was easier to take the entire rocking chair apart, as long as you can remember how it goes back together, and then sand and paint it). Using krylon dual white spray paint, I just spray painted two layers of primer/paint, allowing twenty minutes in between each coat to dry. I waited until the next day to do a third coat of just regular krylon white gloss spray paint. After allowing that paint about two or three hours to dry, only because I had gotten distracted with other things, I used RustOleum's crystal clear gloss finish spray, just to add a protective finish to the chair.
4. This is just a picture I found online, but this is the thickness of the plywood I decided to use for the seat and backing. My dad was able to help me with this part, using his compass and jigsaw, he was able to cut the wood to the exact size of the inner caning parts.
5. Once the wood pieces were cut, I was able to cut out the exact same size pieces of upholstery foam to fit on top the the wood, perfectly. I just used scissors to cut the foam, it was on the tougher side since the foam I used was two inches thick, but not too horrible. I just used fast drying, all purpose glue to glue the foam onto the wood.
6. For added cushion and softness, I used fleece fabric underneath the fabric I was using for the cushions. You don't have to do this, but I had the extra fleece lying around the house and just thought it would be better if I did use it, also because the top fabric isn't very thick.
7. While I pulled the two fabrics over the foam and wood, my dad stapled along the edge of it, using his staple gun. We did this for both the seat and the back part. If you are also deciding to use the thin wood, though, make sure you use the shorter staples. We made this mistake at first and they were slightly poking me when I pushed down on the cushion, so we had to redo this with shorter staples.
(This is how they turned out)
8. Before attaching the seat and back part frames to the rocking chair again, we used a staple gun, once more, but with brad nails instead of staples, this time, to attach the cushions to the frames. You don't have to staple as many times as you do above though; we only put one nail on top and one on bottom, then two or three on each side. You have to make sure it's on the very edge though, so you're able to cover it with piping if you choose to do so. The last thing I did was spray two or three layers of scotch-gard over the fabric, just in case something spills on it.
This is the rocking chair finished, I haven't put the piping along the rim of the cushions yet, only because I bought the wrong piping, as soon as I can though I plan on adding it on to get a better finished look. But, for right now I'm pretty happy with how the chair turned out and am glad I decided to do this project!!
If you would like to see how the piping is done, the link below has a great tutorial for this chair as well, which helped me a lot with finishing mine; wouldn't have been able to do it without her help.
