I messed up the first post with huge pics, sorry; I try again.
I found this rocker in a garage sale and was told that for years it had been in the attic of The Myrtles (Louisiana haunted antebellum home). In the picture it looks solid – but it was a multi-directional rocker – back and forth; sideways; and in circles – any direction you wanted. The board at the top of the back was nailed into the material and was attached to the chair’s back only with a 2” metal plate with screws. I gambled that once I removed the covering I would find remnants of a mission style back with slats. I lost.


I found probably 4 levels of previous “repairs”. At the core of the back was a structure that was anything but Mission and was a very “antique” repair itself with a burlap sugar bag, piece of tin, and hay.





The bottom/seat of the chair had been totally remade with an extension behind to hold up the back; and the seat was attached to the chair sides only by the two metal bolts. The wood of the bottom/seat is so old and soft that I can peel it off with my finger nails – several of the many long nails I pulled out with my nails. The front of this piece is oak, but it looks like it was just nailed in there for looks.



http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q312/mamarivera/bottominnards.jpg

The back is not attached to the bottom. Half the springs are rusted and broken.



I have taken apart the oak sides of the chair and they are in good shape and have cleaned up and stained very well. Those plywood inserts under the arm rests, all by themselves, disintegrated into strips and layers within an hour of removal – I have already made slats to replace it.

On the inside of the top of the two back posts are dowel holes that make me believe that, at one point in time, this chair did have a back rather than the thing that you see in the pictures.

I could really use some advice as to what to do now. What would you specialist do with this chair? Garbage can is out of the question except for the piece of tin and the hay.

have the wood refinished.. or refinish it yourself. You may even get by with leaving the finish, and cleaning it.. then put on a good coat of wax.

I would invest in a nice leather hide, and take it to an upholstery place..

You can also get some nice mission style tacks.. restoration places like Van Dykes has them..


Thanks..

I have already refinished the side pieces and they are ready to assemble. (The color is not as dark as it appears in the picture.)


What I need to know is about the seat and back:

1. Should I throw out the wooden back thing and make two rails and slats and re-make it back into a mission style back? Look at the long piece and you will see two blue pieces of tape – they are covering the two dowel holes I was telling you about that lead me to believe that the back structure you see in the other picture is not the original back of this chair (there was nothing attached to these holes).

2. Should I keep the back thing as it is and try to re-cover it in a similar style that I found it (minus the hay and tin)?


3. With the bottom, should I try to do anything to the soft rotted wood as it is, to try to save it and re-cover it?


4. With the bottom, should I re-make the whole thing out of oak and try to restore it back to a mission style spring bottom?


5. With the bottom, should I re-make the whole thing out of oak but make it a solid bottom with a cushion on top as I have seen in other pictures?

I am just at a loss as to which would be the best thing to do.
I can’t imagine that there is any value left to the chair, but I would at least like for it to look like it when I sit it in my living room.
Thank you

Can you tell if the flat pannels are original to the chair?

This is quite a project you have taken on--it seems to be like a fictional detective story. The more you uncover, the more mysterious the chair becomes. Unlike fiction, you have a lot of choices to make with little information to guide you.

Good luck. Don't sweat the small stuff--what ever you come up with for this chair, you have saved a part of something that was arts & crafts. Without you, this may have ended up in the junkyard, used as firewood or painted white.

Keep up the good work.

Bev.

quote:

value left to

I don't have a clue. There are vertical grooves in the front and back posts of the chair sides. But in all the internet searching that I have done, I haven't found another chair along this line that has that panel. Do you think I should replace that plywood panel with more oak plywood instead of the slats? In other projects I have done, I have taken the plywood apart, sanded, and reglued it back and continued to use the same -- this came apart into slivers and well as sheets.

Mysterious?? Yes, I keep in mind that it came from a haunted Louisiana antebellum home!

Thank you

Style wise, the panels do not seem to visually fit with the chair.

I would not bother with plywood to make slats or a new panel. Slats would be to hard to make the edges look right and playwood sides would get nicked too easily by keys from someone's pocket, etc. Take a good look at the groves where the plywood is attached and see if you can find anything indication that there may have been slats there.

I would put my time in duplicating the slats you found for the sides. This is if and only if you determine that the sides are not original. There were lots of variations on these chairs--lots of experiments that were tried once, never made it into a catalog but sold anyway.

It is all a judgement call.

Cool--it came from a haunted mansion.
. . . just in time for Halloween.

Bev.