Maloof Style Rocking Chair

This chair was brought to us by a gentleman who had constructed the entire thing himself, in the style of the Maloof Rocking chairs made in the 19--'s He was making it for his pregnant wife. Unfortunately, with the assistance of his Father the back spindles were sanded down until they were two fine to support weight. Also, he had trouble attaching the rockers in such way that they did not become loose as the chair was used'.  The spindles are on the floor in front of the Rocking Chair.  The dark colored spindle is the original that was put into the chair.  As you can see, it becomes extremely fine and delicate towards one end.   All it took was one person sitting in the rocker and half of them snapped in two.  The light colored ones are what we are putting in the rocker this time.


We also had to attach the rockers to the chair. When they had come off originally, the area around the joint was damaged. To attach the rocker this time, we cleaned out the joint, added new wood to the underside of the rocker, and held it together with epoxy and a hefty dowel.

It took some tricky work to get those spindles in correctly but the rocking chair now looks beautiful and is very usable. We gave the new spindles 3 coats of tung oil and the man who made the rocking chair is going to do the final coat of shinny finish at his home. We are very happy with how this project turned out, and even more happy that our customer liked the finished product!  For more pictures of the work on this project you can check out our flickr page ....  Maloof Style Rocking Chair   

Sam Maloof was a furniture designer and woodworker who first began in his garage by making items for his home in 1948.    The pieces he made were so well liked that people started commissioning items from him. In 1953 he finally build himself a studio so that he could continue making furniture.  His pieces can now be found in museums all over the United States including the Smithsonian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Even though he received remarkable recognition for his work as an 'artist' he continued to call himself simply a 'woodworker' on his business cards until he died in 2009