This is the rocker my mother in law gave me 30 years ago, when Anders was a baby. I call it the magic rocker because even the fussiest baby will fall asleep when rocked in this old girl. It wasn't very pretty back then. Just a well used oak rocker with a warn cloth seat. If you looked close you would see that at some point the rocker had a mishap or one of the runners just wore out because the runners don't exactly match.

Lydia took this old rocker and stripped it down to the bare bones. She filled the old nail holes and sanded and primed the wood and gave it a good coat of paint. Then she got her uncle, the carpenter,  to cut a board seat from the tracing she had made. It is sort of a trapezoid with the corners cut out for the legs. A little too intricate for our tools at hand.

Next came the new padding and seat cover. This is definitely a four-handed job, best completed on a flat surface.

Now the "magic" rocker has new life. Henry goes right to sleep when he is rocked just like his uncle and mommy before him.

Lydia likes the project so much, we found a mid-century swivel rocker on Craig's list we are going to re-upholster together.