Upgraded Couch Legs

My friend told me how he had bought a couch and the legs were made of cheap plastic. Soon they were breaking (lay off the burgers Keith!) We can do better than that! I was able to make replacement legs for about $14.00 with simple parts from Home Depot.

I needed a few things:

• Measurements off the old legs :8 inches tall and they tapered two inches in diameter down to an inch and 3/4 diameter. One inch of 5/16 threaded rod rises from the top to screw into the sofa.
• A 2 inch diameter x 48 inch dowel for the new legs
• threaded 5/16 rod
• 5/16 t-nuts
• pencil
• hacksaw to cut the threaded rod
• drill press to drill centers (you could get away with a drill)
• sander

I cut the 2 inch dowel into 8 inch lengths.

I then found the centers of each dowel and drilled a 5/16 hole into each dowel as deep as I could go using the drill press.

I took the t-nut and hammered into place. into each hole.

I flipped the leg over and then drew a circle to mark how I wanted the taper to finish. I took the dowel to the sander and took my time eating away at the dowel. A sanding wheel made short work of this, but many different methods can get this same result.

After I reached my bottom diameter, I rounded the edges by hand. to give things a clean look. I wasn't perfect with this, because it will be against the floor.

I placed the threaded rod in my vise and cut it into 4 inch pieces. I then threaded these into each leg. The thread in about 3 inches leaving 1 inch rising out of the leg.

To finish these, I'm going to let my friend pick his stain color and then they should simply screw into place. The solid wood will last much longer than the hollow plastic, and depending on the finish he picks, could change the look of the couch!

Finished legs! Ready for stain.