Adding Legs To an IKEA Sofa

I ADORE small, one-day projects that require minimum effort but deliver maximum visual results One of the biggest and most impactful changes I’ve made recently was adding legs to our IKEA KIVIK sofa, and making it a little smaller. If you want to see how adding legs to a sofa to gain height is actually super simple, read on! Here’s what it looked like before:

I’ve noticed something weird…people don’t like sitting on a sectional together. Even though our sofa (in its original format, see above) could hold 8 people comfortably, and we could jam even more on there, people like their space. Even if there is room on the sofa, if it means that someone would have to sit next to someone (gasp!), they will stand. The world is weird. So…we downsized.

This enormous living room has lots of space to stretch out, but we decided to add more singular seating and less grouped seating. Meaning we took our sofa from a U shape to an L shape. Around the same time that we made the switch to a smaller sofa, we also added legs to it. Aaron and I are both quite tall (I’m 5’9″ and he’s 6′), and my Dad is 6’4″. When he came to visit most recently, he was having trouble getting in and out of the sofa because it was so low to the ground. Pair that with my height and Aaron’s height, and we knew that we wanted to do something to make things fit us a little better.

Adding legs was SO easy. The longest part of the project was staining them and making sure we could find legs that I liked. Originally, I wanted to get some furniture legs from a box store that resembled the turned style of the coffee table, but the expense for the entire sofa would have been too high. We just got some brackets and unstained square legs from Amazon (definitely the cheapest option out there) and screwed them into the wood on the existing sofa.

The result? A much less behemoth sectional that doesn’t completely consume the room. Tabby is a big dog (80lbs), and we still don’t run out of space with her sprawled out. The extra space lets us have a little bit of room to spread out and add what I’m calling ‘singular’ seating too. Before, our sofa was jammed up against the walls and didn’t leave us with a ton of room to move around. We added these barstools a few months ago (they are seriously SO comfy, guys) when the sofa was still in its original format, but there just wasn’t enough room to walk around.

Taking the sofa to a smaller footprint meant that we had room to use the barstools and a little bit of room to dance around behind them. Someday I’d like to replace our very damaged countertops with something a little nicer (and definitely a bit more overhang for the barstools), but that’s a few years down the road.

Across from the new (smaller) sofa, we’ve accumulated a few more books, added some plants, and generally just filled it out. Don’t mind the baby gate or the back stretcher, I just forgot to move them before I took pictures and my daughter proceeded to take EVERYTHING out of these drawers about 2.5 seconds after I took this picture.

The left side still houses one of my favorite lamp purchases of all time, our unknown but un-killable plant that I’ve talked about over on Instagram, but has a new friend: our Xbox. We really don’t have much time for gaming these days, but it’s our entertainment device in the living room since we don’t have cable. Netflix and Youtube for the win!

The right side has lots and lots of books, another one of my favorite lamps, and a few meaningful knick-knacks. I think I’m learning that through the years I’m enjoying more ‘maximalist’ style than ever before, so I enjoy having some extra goodies on either side of the TV. Someday I’d like to build a gorgeous wall to wall bookshelf that centers around the TV, but that’s for another day!

This forsythia wreath lives on our back door, and I love the bright pop of color it gives to the room. Around Christmas, we change it out for a red berry wreath my Mom gave me that I have fond memories of from my childhood, hanging in various places around the house (usually on the kitchen door to the garage).

The mantle houses some really special art – one side is a patent-style print of a piano that I got from an Etsy shop called NeueStudioArtPrints. I seriously love this shop. You’ll notice prints like this all around the house (I may have loaded up on them a few years ago), and they are all SO nice. Super great paper, wonderful print quality, etc. Go check them out!

If Etsy prints are a little bit outside your budget, no sweat! I’ve assembled a list of a ton of free printables you can take advantage of!

On the other side lives a sketch my sister had made for me when she was in France a few years ago. We both went to the same cafe in the arts district, just two years apart. She got one of the artists to paint some girls having lunch at the cafe to symbolize her and I. I seriously love this thing, and it will always be a part of my home.

I’m super happy with the updates that we’ve made in here. It still feels a little empty sometimes, though, so I’m thinking about getting a rug to layer in. Since we’d need something at least 9’x12′, it’s going to have to be something that we save up for. I’d also love to plank one of the walls with some sort of accent to break up all the grey.

Did you like this post? Consider sharing it on your Pinterest account so other people can find it, too! As always, you can follow me on Pinterest for even more inspiration. Check out my living room board here for lots of gorgeous spaces!