Glider Chair Redo

My kids are thirteen and ten now.  When my son was born we bought a glider chair with an ottoman.  There weren't nearly the options thirteen years ago that there are today for seating in a nursery.  So this is the glider and ottoman we bought.

I think almost everyone who has kids around my kids age had a glider like this one.  When I found out I was pregnant with a girl, I knew that this glider just wasn't going to cut it for a girl's room.   It was cute and all, but not nearly girly enough for me.  As we prepared my son's big boy room, we moved the glider into the nursery.  I used it the way it was for a while.  In the meantime,  I started to look around to replace it with something more attractive.

I saw this picture in a Calico Corner's catalog (back then they use to send catalogs - I have all of them saved in magazine holders).

Image from Calico Corners Catalog 

I fell in love with the glider chair and ottoman (as an aside, I also fell in love with the look of the white metal daybed...I think that was one of the main reasons I bought my daughter a very similar daybed).  As it was shown in the Calico Corners catalog it would cost $1395 for the swivel rocker and $750 for the ottoman!!  That was over $2000...just too much for me to spend for a chair and ottoman...and that was almost ten years ago!  So, as much as I loved it, it wasn't going to happen.  But I knew I wanted to achieve that look.  My other issue was that space was limited in my daughter's room.  I couldn't have a huge chair, or even a medium size chair, taking over the room.  The glider and ottoman we had already did fit perfectly and were very comfortable.  Maybe I could do something with my glider to make it look like the one in the catalog.  I decided to call in an upholsterer to see if he could upholster my existing glider and ottoman to make it look like the one in the Calico Corners catalog.

When I met with the upholsterer,  I was so happy to hear that he didn't think this was such a crazy idea.  He had never actually done it before, but he didn't see why not.  This is what he achieved:

He did all of this for $350 - for both the chair and the ottoman.

I got everything I wanted -  the two different fabrics, the contrasting welt and the skirt.  Pretty amazing.

So if you have one of these at home
















You now know that it can look like this...and it will cost you far less than replacing it.

Almost ten years later it's still in great shape and still nice and petite and still very comfortable.  I picked Laura Ashley classic fabrics that will never go out of style.   I still love this chair today.  My daughter loves to curl up in that chair and read.

Let me know what you think.  Hope I inspire someone out there to do the same to their basic glider and ottoman.

-Judy
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