Secret Project #1

Rocking Horse Makeover

31 years ago my sister was born. And during that time my aunt gifted her with a wooden rocking horse. (This is where I would insert the pic of her on it as a baby, but it's at my parents and I'll have to snag it next time I'm up in Phoenix) One of her first pics as a baby is with this horse... and the black eye she got falling off it (hehe). 

Then fast forward 5 years and then I get to inherit the horse. Then slowly the years went on and we got to big for the horse and it got put away somewhere until last year. When I was at my mom's and demanded the crib from the garage and the rocking horse for my child guest room (now slowly becoming the baby room). As soon as I got home, this happened: 

 

So obviously my cats felt the rocking horse was for them.... I would catch them hanging out on the horse, trying to eat the nasty old 31 year old hair... So I ended up stashing it in the garage under a blanket for the last year... UNTIL last month when I told the hubby it was TIME.. time for the pony to get a NEW life! 

PONY MAKEOVER!!!!

BEFORE

As you can see from the before pic, the hair is pretty gross looking.. I'm not sure if the hair was always brownish grey (I'll have to check my parent's pic) but I can confirm that it was pretty dusty and matted and .... well... eewww is the only way I could describe it. Also the face is drawn on and I can honestly say it kind of creeped me out. The tail was only screwed on with one screw (at a diagonal) and the wood was striped. Speaking of the wood, it wasn't in the best shape, its 31 years old for goodness sake, yes it was stained, but had never had a clear coat sealer and you could tell from the rough wood that the maker didn't really put much of an effort into sanding it down before selling it..

And so deconstruction started! We found that only a few screws and what looked like a couple gobs of hot glue (yes HOT glue like from a glue gun... not even wood glue!) holding it together... It was kinda scary how easy the whole horse came apart!

Hubby took the pony apart, limb for limb

 As the hubby took the pony apart, I took the fur off of it... I had thought I would be fighting with a bunch of glue holding it on but found that the maker had actually used a staple gun and staples to attach the fur!... And all the staples had rusted over time! I found that most of the staples were not flush into the wood so one wrong pet of the pony and the petter could get cut! (not to mention get tetanus!) So long wine short I removed the staples: (remember my sneak peak from last week?!?!)

 Meanwhile the hubby sanded down the pony and put it back together.. with lots of wood glue and lots of screws.

NAKED PONY!

He then stained it with an Ebony stain (super super super dark brown) and then added clear coat on it. We let it sit for a couple days in the garage until the smell went away then brought it in the house for my part!  For the fur I purchased a 1/3 yard of rabbit fur from the fabric store (I'm pretty sure it was fake... at least that's what I'm telling myself) for a couple bucks and 3M adhesive spray:

I took the old pieces I took off to use as a size guide for cutting out the new pieces. I had to fight with the staples some more because of the rust it kept pieces of fabric together and made it hard to lay flat. Once I got that done, I set them onto of the BACK of the fur and cut new pieces for the tail and head

. 

Finally I drew a line down the middle of the head piece so I would have a reference spot when gluing the hair on! (no one needs a crooked main!) 

 AND NOW THE BIG REVEAL!

AFTER

What do you think!? Was it worth the wait?! I'm super happy with how it turned out and like it a lot! I think it will make a great addition to the baby room and will last for AT LEAST another 31 years! 

Until next time!

Bre and the Bump!