Glider makeover - Part 1

A friend gifted us a hand-me down glider when I was pregnant. At that point the gilder was a decade or two old. We used it a lot  It was a good place to nurse, cuddle and read to an infant/toddler.  My son is now 10, but the glider is still in his room. He still uses it, mainly as an iPad stand.

The seat and arm rest covers began to show wear a couple years ago.  As you can see, I visibly mended it, which extended the life by 18 months. A few weeks ago the cushion fabric completely split open. A lot of people would probably have thrown away the glider at that point.  I probably would have done the same a few years ago. But now I salvage things. The wood frame was still in good shape so I decided to recover the cushions.

This is the first post in a series describing how I undertook this endeavor. 

I had to make some calculations when I started this project. The only part of this chair that  was designed for washing were the arm covers. The backrest cushion cover was actually sewn into the foam. I had removed the seat covering to wash it before I patched it previously, but I had to undo stitches and it frayed in the washing machine because the seams were not finished. I had never washed the back rest, but had simply turned the cleaner side to face out.

I definitely wanted coverings that could be washed. That meant finished seams and closures that could be easily opened. For the back rest, I knew I wouldn't be able to keep the grooves that you can see in this picture. 

The arm pads that did detach for washing snapped into the frame. I don't have a snap tool and the fabric around the existing snaps was in decent shape so I decided to leave them be and work around them. 

We also had to choose fabric to use. Luckily, there were some larger pieces in my 38-lb box.  My son selected one fabric and, although it was thrifted, it did not appear to be pre-shrunk so I washed it. 

My son later claimed it was not the pattern he actually chose once the project was underway. Alas.  

Another calculation involved getting my son off Minecraft long enough to work on this project with me. I knew that was probably going to be the biggest challenge in all of this. 

You can read more step-by-step instructions and whether I succeeded in keeping my kid off Minecraft in blog posts, I will publish later this month.