How to Raise a Sofa to Be Used With a Dining Table

If you want to match a sofa with a dining room table to achieve a luxurious banquette-seating arrangement, there will be just one problem with your idea: Sofas are usually much lower than a dining chair. You will need to raise your sofa's seat to at least 20 inches in height to make dining at the table comfortable. Does this Spark an idea?

Instructions

Replacing the Feet

1

Measure the height of your sofa from the bottom of the sofa cushion to the floor. Take this measurement while an adult male is seated on the sofa. Measure from the back of the seated person's knees to the floor. For example, this sofa seated-height might be just 17 inches. That means you will need to change legs so as to add 3 inches to the sofa's height in order to make it suitable for use as a dining room banquette (at 20 inches).

2

Turn the sofa over and examine how many feet the sofa is resting on; if the sofa has just four feet, you will need to create four new feet for it.

3

Figure out how the feet are attached to the sofa's base frame. You will find one of two potential situations.

One--the feet are simply screwed into the base. This would be the "best-case scenario" for you, since similar types of furniture feet or legs with screw-in bolts can be purchased at home improvement stores in many shapes, diameters and lengths. You will only have to swap out old feet for new feet.

Two--the feet are attached to the base in some kind of permanent manner, built in as a part of the base and thus not easily removed. If this is the case, you will have to take a different approach to solving the problem by fabricating new "false feet"; instructions are below.

4

Remove the screw-in feet from the sofa. Note the diameter of these feet.

5

Take one of the feet with you to a home improvement store and look for short table or furniture legs. Find a leg unit that has a screw-in bolt at the top and is your desired length from the bottom of the bolt to the base of the leg. You can also cut down taller legs to this desired height. Look for a new leg or foot that is to 1 inch larger in diameter than the original sofa foot. The taller feet for the sofa need to be a little wider than the original feet to provide more support for the sofa at this taller height. "Bun" feet are nice and wide and look good with almost any type of sofa design. Buy as many of these feet or legs as you may need. Make sure the bolts on the new feet or legs are the same diameter as the bolts on the original feet.

6

Cut down any longer new legs as necessary. Measure carefully from the base of the screw bolt down, and cut the legs off cleanly.

7

Stain or paint the new feet to match any exposed wood on the sofa and let dry.

8

Screw the new feet into the foot bolt sockets on the sofa.

9

Turn the sofa over and test it for stability.

Fabricating False Feet

10

Find round wooden furniture "bun" feet that are 1 inches tall and 1.5 times the diameter of the current sofa feet. You can also use circles or "plates" made from wood as long as they are 1 inches thick. If your current sofa feet are 3 inches in diameter, you will need to find bun feet, or circle-shaped wooden boards, that are about 4.5 inches in diameter. Buy two of these bun feet, or circular boards, for every foot on your sofa.

11

Stack two of the buns together, one atop the other. Drill a pilot hole for a 2 inch wood screw in the bottom of one of the buns. Counter-sink this screw hole by inch. Apply wood glue between the buns. Insert a 2-inch wood screw into the pilot hole and screw the buns together. Do this on just one side of the "sandwich." Turn the sandwich over.

12

Mark the center of the top bun or circular plate. Use a compass or a circle template to mark a circle in the middle of the bun that is just 1/8 of an inch wider in diameter than a current sofa foot. If your original foot is 3 inches in diameter, trace a circle 3 1/8 inches in diameter. Drill out or route out this hole pocket, to a depth of just 1 inch. Glue a plastic furniture glide pad to the bottom of the false foot, over the counter-sink hole. Produce as many of these false feet as needed and then sand and finish these stacked bun feet and let them dry.

13

Turn the sofa over, upside down. Apply a generous quantity of a strong wood glue, like Gorilla Glue, to the inside of the pocket of these false feet. Insert a false foot onto the end of the original sofa foot. Tap the bottom of the false foot with a hammer to ensure a tight fit. Apply all the false feet in this manner.

14

Turn the sofa right side up. Test the sofa by sitting in it, and sliding it forward and back on the floor. The sofa should be sturdy and should glide easily without falling off of the false feet.