A high-back wooden rocking chair on solid timber feet

The back runs straight up, past shoulder height, and stops square rather than curving in. It sets the outline: a tall grey rectangle over a dark wooden base. The upholstery is matt and finely grained, with no sheen to catch the light, so the texture only reads at arm's length. Under it, the rocking chair stands on mid-brown timber cut in one sweep from front leg to runner.

The seat is a single cushion, 14 cm thick. The back meets it at a shallow angle, close to upright, so the shoulders stay over the seat rather than behind it. The arms square off level with the cushion top, one carrying a flat pocket on the outside. Movement comes from the timber below: two runners with a long, shallow curve, quieter on carpet than on board.

The arc needs floor behind it, and the height changes what it meets there: on the rear stroke the top of the back reaches picture rails and radiator shelves, not skirting. In front of a window it covers the lower half of the glass. Along a wall it reads as a solid vertical, which is why it settles better in a corner.

Teddy pile and grey on a solid wood rocker

Grey was settled before anything else, and the whole chair is cut from it: back, arms, seat, outer sides, with no contrast panel and no piping. In flat daylight the bouclé teddy reads as one matt plane. Closer in, the surface breaks into small loops, and light lands only on the tops of them, which is what keeps a mid-grey from going flat.

A pile like this shows crushing before it shows dirt: the seat flattens where a body sits, and the arms go smooth where hands rest. A soft brush over the surface lifts it again. Spills are blotted rather than rubbed. The timber asks for less, a dry cloth, and felt strips under the runners if the floor is board rather than carpet.

Height and seat depth are easier to place against other formats: the models chosen for their line sit in the same register, and the chairs built on the same motion put the proportions of this one in context.

Back height and cushion depth on a high back rocking chair

A traditional wooden rocker offers the same runners and none of the padding: a shaped seat, a slatted back, a chair you sit on rather than in. Here the timber stops at the feet. Everything above them is upholstered end to end, the back is tall enough to take the head when the body leans into it, and the seat is deep rather than contoured. The frame is rated to 150 kg.

It works where a tall object is wanted rather than tolerated: beside a bookcase, at the end of a sofa run, in a nursery corner where the wall is otherwise bare. What a low-backed chair cannot do is meet the head at all. What a thin seat cannot do is keep its shape under a body for a whole evening.

The timber carries the movement and the cushion carries the sitting. Everything else on the chair is upholstery holding a straight line.

Living with wooden runners

Three questions about the base rather than the seat.

Do rocking chairs damage hardwood floors?

They can, over time. The runners carry the whole weight on two narrow strips, and any grit caught underneath acts as an abrasive with every pass, wearing the finish before it marks the wood. Felt strips along the full length of each runner remove the problem, and they quieten the movement as well.

How do you stop a rocking chair from squeaking?

Find where the noise comes from first. Wood moving on a hard floor makes a dry rasp, cured by felt or a rug underneath. A creak from the chair itself is usually a joint that has loosened, and tightening the fixings under the seat solves most of them. Wax on a dowel joint helps too.

What wood is used for rocking chairs?

Hardwoods, mostly, because the runners flex slightly with every pass and softwoods split under that. Beech, oak, ash and rubberwood are the common ones, sometimes laminated in thin layers for the curve. Colour comes from the stain rather than the species, so a pale timber can finish dark.