My Nursing Chair - Upcycle Project

I always knew I wanted to have a nursing chair and stool for our baby but they can be expensive. We didn't know how much, if at all, it would be used.

So Steve and I compromised, and he agreed that if I could find a cheap one, we would go for it.

I looked all over the Internet and eventually found a second hand one on Gumtree about 3 miles away from our house. We contacted the current owner and agreed to buy it from him.

To our disappointment, when we arrived the chair and stool were much grubbier than they looked in the photos. They were beige but covered in stains.

I was confident we'd be able to revamp them somehow, so we gave him £50 and took them home.

I scrubbed and scrubbed at the fabric for what felt like hours, and although they improved, they didn't look great.

Time to call in the expert!

As I mentioned in Bird's Nursery Tour, my granny can turn her hand to pretty much anything sewing related and although upholstery wasn't her forte, I knew she was my best bet at breathing a bit of life into them!

She took me to a beautiful little fabric shop in Lymington and it took forever to decide which fabric I wanted. Steve wasn't with me, and the one that had gotten my attention was a bit "out there" but I kept coming back to it, so that's the one I chose. It was quite a dark grey with pretty white elephants. This matched the colour theme of the grey starry curtains my granny was making, as well as the jungle theme on our feature wall.

She took them away and worked her magic... Here is the finished product.

 

Granny used some spare fabric from the curtains to add onto the pockets, so the chair matched the curtains.

This is definitely one of my favourite products and I still use it now at almost 11 months. If you have the space and funds for a nursing chair, I would absolutely recommend going for it. The label on this particular chair says Dutailer.

The pockets in the arms are perfect for keeping a couple of spare breastpads, a muslin square, your mobile and a bottle of water for yourself.

The chair and stool both have a gliding mechanism, so you can gently rock baby (or yourself) to sleep.

I don't really use the chair during the night anymore as I feed Bird in bed if she wakes, but it's perfect for daytime cuddles, storytime and to put my feet up once I've put her to bed. Even when we don't use it for baby purposes anymore, I'm definitely going to be keeping it!

I hope you enjoyed reading this, I'm really sorry I can't advise more on the actual upcycling process but it's always worth checking local companies or asking family or friends to help if you have a project like this - some of them may have talents you don't know about :)

Love, Gina Xx