Custom painted children rocking chairs are the perfect gift for anyone expecting a child, a child’s birthday, Christmas, and so on! They are great because they are personalized and can be used for years.
I have personalized 7 children’s rocking chairs and I love every single one that I have done. Take a look at my previous personalized rocking chairs:
I just recently finished a rocking chair and I wanted to show you the process I go through to get these pieces perfect.
Step 1: Get a rocking chair
You can buy these rocking chairs at thrift stores or off of secondhand online marketplaces.
This is the chair that I picked up.
Step 2: Sand the chair down
This rocking chair needed to be sanded down to remove the previous finish and those painted on sports gear and name.
Step 3: Prime the chair (doesn’t always have to be done)
Around 95% of the projects I do I have to prime the piece before painting. However, in this case, I was lucky and I did not have to prime. The wood had a natural color to it so I knew my paint would cover it without primer. Some furniture pieces that have a darker wood need to be primed in order for the paint to appear.
Step 4: Figure out what color goes where on the chair
I used four colors: navy blue, light blue, yellow, and light green for this chair. Before picking up a paintbrush I used a pencil and marked NB (navy blue) LB (light blue) G (green) and Y (yellow) on different parts on the chair so I knew what color those sections needed to be.
Step 5 and 6: Tape off other parts of the chair using painters tape then start painting
As you see in the picture above, I started off by painting the base of the chair, the armrests, the top, and the rockers. Once those parts were painted I used painters tape to protect it while I moved on to paint the spindles.
Step 7: Draw or trace on the base of the chair
After the entire chair is painted it is time to draw or trace on any design that you would like on the base of the chair. I went with the character Tow Mater as you can faintly see below.
Step 8: Paint the base of the chair
Home stretch! It is time to paint the design that was drawn or traced on the base of the chair. I had to mix a lot of different paints to get the color I wanted so I made sure to paint it all in one night so I didn’t have to deal with remixing paint trying to match the color the next day.
Step 9: Use polycrylic to protect the chair
Now that the entire rocking chair was complete, I used a waterbased polycrylic to protect the paint from scratches and any spills that may happen.
Check out the finished product. Let me know what you think! (I am biased because I love Mater).
This chair was gifted and the new owner loves it and can’t wait to give it to her little boy.
