Taking Comfort in Adding a Rocker to Your Room

Rocking chairs go with classic images of knitting grandmas. Even though my grandmothers apparently weren’t the knitting and rocking kind, a rocker has since become a friendly member of my own family.

I bought my wife a rocker when she was pregnant with our first child, and she’s still using it to nurse and nurture our second.

It’s a heavy rocker made of oak, with armrests that curve back and up to frame the backrest, and with gracefully curving backrest tines and a top rail

adorned with a simple, decorative leaf pattern.

The chair’s vintage is uncertain. Its style

is early 19th-Century Windsor, although its condition indicates it may be a newer copy of a Windsor.

But the chair’s exact lineage isn’t as important as its comforting creak on cold, quiet evenings.

You certainly don’t need to be a student of furniture

history to enjoy a rocking chair, just as you don’t need to be a grandmother or a baby.

North County is well stocked with antique dealers, many of which offer wide selections of rockers. In addition, all manner of contemporary rockers are available through regular furniture and specialty stores.

Most antique rockers available in North County were made between 1850 and 1930 and cost from $250 to more than $1,000, according to Don Davis, co-owner, with his wife Hester, of the 16,000-square-foot Heritage Antiques Mall in Solana Beach.

In style, antique rockers range from ornate Victorian, often of dark wood, and with ornately patterned fabric seat cushions, to more austere Mission/Craftsman and Shaker styles.

Early 20th-Century Craftsman rockers, solid and simple, are extremely popular in Southern California, especially with people who live in the many Craftsman-era homes built here during the first 30 or so years of this century.

You seldom find Craftsman pieces in local antique stores, though, and because of the demand, prices are high--often in the thousands of dollars.

Antique rockers made especially for nursing or sewing are especially popular with young families, Davis said. Equipped with low, wide seats and without armrests, they are easy to slide into--a high priority for parents cradling infants in their arms.

At the Escondido Antique Mall recently, antique dealer Darrell Ford offered five rockers, most of them dating from the early 1900s: a high-backed oak rocker with a cushion seat ($350); a bentwood-armed rocker with a needlepoint seat ($350); a dark mahogany or walnut “stretch-arm” Windsor rocker, with arms that curve back to frame the backrest ($450); an armless black sewing rocker with a woven, rush seat ($145); and a 30- to 40-year-old child’s wicker rocker ($69.50).

Antique rockers aren’t the only way to get some Old World craftsmanship. Many companies make new chairs in a variety of rustic, traditional styles.

MPLA in Solana Beach can order many of these from its catalogues, ranging from hickory, cane-back rockers made in Indiana by Old Hickory Furniture Co., to wicker rockers in a variety of styles.

Rockers by well-known, early 20th-Century designers such as Gustav Stickley are still manufactured and can be ordered through MPLA and other stores. A re-issue of Stickley’s 1905 oak rocker fetches $1,300.

If nostalgia isn’t your thing, stores like MPLA will sell you something on the cutting edge. Like Los Angeles designer Ries Niemi’s “head chairs,” with backrests of steel rebar bent into a large-nosed profile. Or L.A. architect Frank Gehry’s cardboard chairs.

Cost wise, many of these pieces run into the thousands.

Take time to give a rocker a quick quality check before you buy it.

All wood joints should be glued, preferably with interlocking joints such as dovetails or mortise-and-tenon.

Creaking isn’t necessarily bad; some folks even find it an essential element of a chair’s personality.

“A squeak here, a squeak there, you could almost tell Grandma’s mood by the volume and speed of the squeaks,” Davis suggests.

If you find an antique rocker that’s appealing but not in good shape, consider having it restored. This costs about $150, more if woven cane or wicker needs replacing.

Perhaps the best thing about rockers is that they can become family heirlooms. Handed down through generations, they give a pleasant sense of continuity to the passage of time.

There are many North County furniture and antique outlets to investigate as you look for a rocker, but here are some starting places:

* Escondido Antique Mall (135 W. Grand Ave. 743-3210), a 3,000-square-foot emporium featuring 52 dealers

* The Heritage Antiques Mall in Solana Beach (241 S. Cedros Ave. 481-1099)

* Europa Antiques Warehouse & Mall in San Marcos (694 Rancheros Drive. 744-2627)

* MPLA in Solana Beach (987-B Lomas Santa Fe Drive, in Lomas Santa Fe Plaza. 481-9209).

* Los Angeles designer Ries Niemi sells by catalogue or directly, (213) 671-3115.