Day Seven: Sanding, Sanding, Sanding, etc.

One arm down! Woo hoo!

Day Six: More Sanding and More Deconstruction

Sanding is progressing very, very slowly. This is mostly due to the fact that I can only really work on the chair after work.
I discovered today that getting into all the little nooks and crannies is going to be exceedingly difficult unless I actually do take the chair apart. This led me to another discovery: whoever made this chair was inordinately fond of nails. I have so far succeeded in removing one arm. This involved in the removal of sixteen nails. I'm not kidding. Sixteen!

Day Five: Sanding

No pictures today, but I'm starting to comprehend the vastness of this project. Every bit of this chair has to be sanded to give me a clean slate for staining. But it doesn't just have to be sanded. It has to be sanded three to four times - each time with a finer grain.
I have a sanding block for the straight parts to make sure they come out nice and even, but there aren't a whole lot of straight parts on this chair. That means bascially lots and lots of sanding by hand. The next few posts may simply comprise pics of my progress in the coming days.

Day Four: Deconstruction Part 2

Upon closer inspection, it turns out that the seat of the chair is just screwed into the frame. A few minutes of loosening some incredibly rusty screws, and the seat came easily away from the rest of the chair. At this point, I'm not sure if I should continue taking the chair apart so that I can reglue the joints. I'm gong to go ahead and start sanding. Maybe I will have decided by the time I'm done.

Day Three: Deconstruction Part 1 1/2

As you can see from the pictures, the deconstruction isn't finished yet. In fact, I haven't actually worked on it since my last post. Hence, the title of this post. I will be working on the chair some more this weekend.


You can see how the frame prohibits removing the rest of the old seat.

Day Two: Deconstruction Part 1

I've been doing a lot of online research as to the best way to restore my poor rocking chair, and the first step seemed to be a no-brainer. First, I have to get rid of anything on the chair that I don't want to keep. In this case, that would be the dry-rotted and shredded rush that makes up the back and the seat.

For this task, I will be using a pocket knife that I bought for my fiance. The blade I'm using is called a hawkbill - a name I thought to be ridiculous since hawks don't have bills, they have beaks. But being the nerd that I am, I did a little research. Get this, the knife blade is actually named after a species of turtle called the Hawkbill.

What I think is funny is that the turtle got its name because it has a hooked beak similar to a hawk's. So I've got a knife that was named after a turtle with a hooked beak that was named after a bird with a hooked beak. So why is it called a hawkbill when neither the turtle nor the bird have bills? I wasn't able to locate any information on that subject. I can only assume that hawkbill sounds cooler than hawkbeak. Anyway, here is a picture for reference:


So using my somewhat aptly named blade, I started removing the rush. It came off the back pretty easily, and I made a few discoveries. Apparently, this chair once played nursery to thousands of baby spiders. I found three separate egg sacks:




Removing the rush from the seat has proven to be a bit of a challenge. It seems that the original maker of the chair wove the seat before the chair was actually finished. There are spindles all the way around that are very effectively impeding my progress. I wasn't able to get pictures because the batteries in my camera died. I will show what I'm talking about as soon as I can. I will more than likely have to take the chair apart to get the rest of the rush removed.

Day One: Introduction

Behold, my Christmas present! Ok, I figure you're probably wondering who hates me enough to give me this piece of crap. Allow me to explain. I have actually wanted a rocking chair for some time. Unfortunately, the economy being what it is, this has not been a possibility. (For those of you who don't know, rocking chairs are actually kind of expensive.) So my mother, who has always been a big proponent of trolling thrift stores, found this little gem one day. She made a quick call to my fiance, who readily agreed that purchaing the chair was a good idea since I had also requested some kind of craft project.

A short word on thrift stores: if you have some spare time on your hands and enjoy shopping, thrift stores are a wonderful place to find discarded treasures. If you can find a thrift store that is run as a not-for-profit charity organization, the possibilites are seemingly endless. For example, at the same said thrift store I found a digital wireless phone with four handsets, a leather jacket, a new door for the house, and THE perfect wedding dress. My total cost for all of these items was $51 plus tax. And get this - the wedding dress still had the tags on it. It had been donated by a bridal shop because it was 3 seasons old and the manufacturer had gone out of business.

So back to the chair. The challenge that has been presented to me is to restore this poor, neglected piece of furniture to its original glory for less than the cost of buying a new one. I've decided to chronicle my efforts for posterity. I will take pictures before and after every step and provide commentary. With any luck, someone will find this educational or entertaining or maybe even both.

Below are all the before pictures of the chair. It was apparently sitting on someone's front porch, being used as an outdoor scratching post for the neighborhood cat.

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