Hello and happy Monday! I hope all you moms out there felt cherished and pampered on your big day! Thank you for all you do! To my mom especially, your unselfish and unconditional love has given me an incredibly blessed life. Your full fledged support of both me and my dreams has both propelled me and stabilized me since I was a little girl. You are the perfect picture of everything a mom should be. Multiple times a week, I thank God for having parents that raised me with love and discipline. You’re the best Mom! I love you! 🙂
If you didn’t catch this post the first time around, it’s a good read for those of us on a budget! Tim and I’s favorite projects include doing custom installations or building custom pieces, but of course that’s not always an option due to time and/or money. When we are working with a smaller budget, there are a few tricks we like to use in order to make pieces feel a little more expensive or to make existing pieces work for us. One of those tricks is changing out furniture legs.
You can see how we created a more modern look for this couch by simply switching out the legs for a more sleek and slender style. Restuffing the cushions with a higher density foam (another great tip) also helped the piece feel more clean and modern!
Now, the process of switching out furniture legs is actually super simple and relatively inexpensive. Let me demonstrate the process with this ottoman I bought for a client’s living room.
I saw this piece on Amazon.com. At $190 it was a good price. I went ahead and purchased the piece knowing I could enhance the look by adding some elegant turned legs.
Amazon is also a great source to point you toward a number of furniture leg options from different vendors.
The idea is that by simply changing out the stock legs with more substantial turned wood legs that the piece would feel more expensive and similar to this Restoration Hardware look below.
I ended up choosing these turned legs which I stained with Minwax’s Jacobean color.
So here’s the 3 step process of switching out the legs.
First, remove the stock legs by simply loosening a few screws with a drill or screw driver.
Next, you attach these furniture leg brackets to the bottom of the piece with screws. You can find these at any hardware store (Lowes, Home Depot, Ace, True Value, ect.) Make sure you measure and are attaching each bracket in the same location at each corner. I measured mine about an inch in from each side.
Lastly, you simply screw the new legs into the brackets. Here’s what the final product looked like!
I was very pleased with the final look. It definitely fits my client’s expensive taste much more than the original piece. And the best part is we saved $200 compared to the Restoration Hardware option. . . and my Amazon piece boasts hidden storage to boot!!
We hope you enjoyed this post and gathered a couple of tips to help you make standard furniture look more expensive and stylish! ‘Til tomorrow!
That does make such a difference. My sister did the same thing with some furniture she found at a garage sale – she added some big round chunky legs from lowes to get it up off the floor and make it look so much better!
Did you completely change out the foam in the cushions of the couch for thicker foam or add more foam to what was there?
It’s amazing what a difference small changes can make to the look and feel of a piece. My sister-in-law recently changed the pulls on all her cabinetry and the kitchen looks SO much better.
Hey Jill! I completely changed out the foam in the cushions. I actually only replaced the back cushions, not the seat cushions. I was very shocked at the stuffing that was in the back cushions previously. It was so frumpy and had no shape at all! The higher density foam holds it’s shape very well!
Changing knobs is one of my favorite things to do! There are some pretty great options out there! Thanks for commenting Joanna!
The new legs make for a wonderful transformation. Thanks for the directions. I’d like to try it (but I tend to screw up my DIY projects–it takes some hidden talent I don’t possess!)
Great post! I love how a piece can be transformed by a small detail. Thanks! Found you via Google, searching for furniture legs.