So who knew that I would have a lot of opinions on rockers? Some of them just look too old fashioned for my style, and some are just ridiculously expensive! We have had this Jennylund chair from IKEA for a couple years now, thanks to a friend of ours. They were getting rid of it because one of the legs was broken. We had to bolster that side back up as you can see from this first photo. Yours probably will look a lot cleaner than this, but all it needed was the frame reinforced and we got a $250 chair for free!
So when we went looking at rockers, we were having the hardest time justifying the price, when we already had a chair that worked just fine and that I actually liked the style of. So we went on a hunt to figure out what our options were. That's when we found these swivel rocker attachments. We went with the adjustable, heavy duty, 5 1/4" base. This was actually a very easy install, especially after we spent the day before redoing the entire plumbing system in our guest toilet, so this was a win.
First step is to flip your chair over and rip off the backing. No one sees it anyway so we just trashed ours, and it's about to be covered by plywood.
Next we took off all four legs. I'm saving these for many moons from now, when we no longer need a rocker and we want to turn it back into a regular chair. The holes are still visible and we should just be able to unscrew the glider base and put these back on!
Next we got a 3/4" thick piece of plywood that we had cut to 22"x22". Again this top piece that you see all these screws on wouldn't be on yours if your framework was still intact. As long as you have the four corners lined up where you can put two screw in each corner, you should be just fine. You may need to add a skinny piece of wood to make it even, but we already had done so from before. We predrilled the 8 holes and then attached the plywood to the base.
Then we laid our glider base in the center of the chair (there is a front side marked, be sure to look for it!) and then marked our drill holes again. We ordered the mounting screws with our slider attachment, just to be sure they were the right size.
Last we attached the slider base! I like the adjustable one because it offers two different options for how much it rocks, plus it swivels which is nice for getting in and out of the chair hands free.
We flipped it over, cleaned it up, and that's it! Really simple project to end up with a chair we love, that didn't cost an arm and a leg ($90! Most rockers are between $150-300 depending on where you look!). Plus, you have to love that the IKEA slipcovers can be taken off and washed, especially with this one being white! And worst case you buy a new cover and keep the chair. Maybe someday, when we have spare money, I'll buy a backup cover.
So if you have a chair that you like, and want to use, I recommend giving this a little bit of research! We're thrilled with it, and glad we took the chance! I love this sweet little corner of our nursery and can't wait to be holding our little one in my arms in this chair!
