The Antique Sunflower Rocker

Since my husband Cody and I have collaborated on a few upholstered pieces with his tooled leather upholstery panels, he decided he wanted to work on some larger tooled leather upholstery panels for a piece. 

We had just-so-happened to come across this antique platform rocking chair in our travels. The gal we bought it from shared that one of her family members had it down in Oakland, CA well over 100 years ago and it had since made it up to where she lived.

While the frame was in good shape, the finish was aged (expectedly), the upholstery was worn-out, stained, and the padding had reached the end of its life-span. The platform springs and original caster wheels were also still in great shape. 

While I wasn’t looking forward to refinishing all of the twisted rails, posts, and spindles on it, I knew it was going to be a great piece when it was all done, so got right to work.

First, it was torn down, removing all of the old upholstery. Then, all of the remaining upholstery tacks and staples were removed, and the old finish was stripped off. Thankfully, my soda blaster made quick work of stripping the old finish and stain off with all of the twists, carvings, details, and spindles.  

The frame was then repaired as needed, the joints tightened, and it was prepped to re-stain and finish. 

We opted for a dark walnut stain with a matte finish to help showcase the tooled leather panels. 

Cody chose a chocolate leather for the padded arms and headrest to go with the frame color and those (along with the tooled leather panels) were finished off with copper-colored decorative nails. 

After Cody had spent so much time making his patterns for the templates, cutting out and tooling the leather panels, I was a little nervous getting his panels upholstered to the piece.

The real challenge was making sure the tooled leather panels would work with the new padding as the leather (veg tan) used for tooling has no stretch to it, unlike upholstery leather. The templates for the leather panels were also made when there was no padding on the piece to ensure the accuracy of their shape and size. 

My job was to make sure my finished padding and upholstery lined up with Cody’s templates and get them upholstered onto the piece. This would have been much easier had we been at the same location to dry fit his leather panels prior to tooling them or while I padded it, but he was away from home for the week working on the panels while I was at the shop. 

Once Cody finished the leather panels, and the rocker was ready for them, it was time for me to upholster them onto the frame. No pressure! 

There were also not going to be any do-over’s if I made a mistake upholstering the panels to the piece as we were on a time crunch getting both of our pieces ready for the Art Show.

Thankfully, Cody’s tooled leather panels were a perfect fit and with very little adjusting, they went right on as we had planned and hoped they would. 

The plan for this piece (and another I upholstered and collaborated with Amanda Wentz Studios on) was to enter it in the Red Bluff Western Art Show. 

While we had no expectations with so many amazing artists entered, it ended up bringing home the Best in Show Award (the ribbon text isn’t accurate in this picture) in the Fine Craft Division. 

It’s really been a lot of fun being able to collaborate with Cody on pieces and I’m excited for what he comes up with next! 

Until next time..

Happy upholstering!

~Sierra