Refurbished nursing chair

When Little Girl was a few weeks old, and I was halfway between basking in the joy of being a new mother and crying my eyes out at the pain of breastfeeding, I decided I needed somewhere more comfortable to sit in, which I could breastfeed her in.

A quick google led me to some rather unattractive, but undeniably practical, nursing chairs that rocked, had reclining backs and came with matching footstools, but at around £150, they were well out of my maternity price bracket. So I found one on Ebay for £30.

Mr went and picked it up and put it together, and I was instantly happier with my special chair. But my goodness, was it ugly!! Beige corduroy on a stained oak rocker - definitely not my cup of tea. I made grand plans to recover it and paint the wood. This was around May 2013.

We moved into a new house in October 2013, and I was still breastfeeding, so putting the chair together was a priority when we moved in. I made a mental note to get cracking on my re-upholstery project as soon as we settled. I spent a while searching for fabrics and getting swatches sent to me, and eventually settled on a beautiful print from Sanderson - it wasn't cheap, but I figured it would look so good that we could keep it for years to come! The fabric sat in its wrapper for a while, and eventually, I made a start.

Having never upholstered anything before, I thought I'd start simply, and do the footstool cushion first. The cushion pad turned out to be a bit rubbish, so I popped into a local haberdashery and bought a new piece of foam to use. I also decided that it would like better as 3 pieces of fabric (top, bottom and sides) rather than 2, which is what it was originally. Also, having suffered a baby with reflux, I knew everything had to be easily removed for washing, so I made a simple pillowcase opening on the back.

The cushion pad looked great, the footstool, however, was still a pretty bland stained oak. I rectified this promptly with a purchase of Annie Sloane chalk paints and wax. It was super simple to use, and I hope you'll agree that the footstool turned out a treat.

At this point, Little Girl had a massive sleep regression and I simply never had time to get on with the chair part of the nursing chair.

Eventually, I ordered more foam to replace the seat pad and back cushion on the chair, and recut them to a slightly more elegant, rounded shape, then cracked on with making the new covers. I used the old cushion covers as a guide, and added a few extras - Mr is a whole foot taller than me, so although my head sits comfortably on the back cushion, his rests on the wooden frame - I added a layer of wadding and put it in a simple covering, so that his head is gently cushioned on those nights where we spend a few hours cuddling Little Girl to sleep. I then had to add a couple of poppers to the underside of that cushion to keep it from flicking up - simple enough.

Really chuffed with the end result, and even managed to get it done before Little Baby arrives.