replacing the legs on our ikea karlstad sofa

after falling in love with these pretty pegs, i was a little heartbroken. at that price, there was no way i could afford a set of 12 (twelve!) new legs. i wanted to revamp the look of our ikea karlstad though, so i was determined to find a solution. with just a little paint, elbow grease and diy spirit i was able to change all 12 legs on our sofa for under $70 (that sounded much better than $360!). yay!

upon a quick visit to lowes, i quickly found these  mid-century modern style tapered sofa legs. i jumped for joy! priced at only $3.98 a piece i thought, 'oh, i can do this'. after a small amount of research, this is what i figured out i needed:

- 12 tapered sofa legs
- 12 table leg plates (use the angled plates if you'd rather the angled look!)
- my favorite gold spray paint (already had some leftover from this project)
- painter's tape
- electric screwdriver
- sample sized regular paint in your preferred color (i used valspar)

i already had the last four above supplies in our diy stash, but if you don't they'll only add a minimal cost.

sidenote #1: i think bear approved of the update! sidenote #2: you can see the 'old' legs in this picture behind bear!

first, paint the wooden part of each leg in your desired color. they were easy to paint by holding on to the metal ends and just working in a circle. i then punched 12 holes in the bottom of a cardboard box and stuck the end of each leg into the box in order to let them dry standing up.

after the legs are dry, grab some scrap paper and painters tape. cover the freshly painted surface and line the painters tape up exactly with the line of the metal ends.

next, spray paint the bottoms gold! because of the taper, i could easily just set these down to let them dry without scuffing up the new gold paint.

next, you'll have to use a little elbow grease. first things first, flip your sofa upside down (ha!). then, unscrew and remove each leg, then remove the black plastic plate underneath the leg. (i forgot to photograph this piece, but you'll see it, i promise! you can see a faded outline of it on the picture above). this was the hardest part of the entire diy, but i did it all by myself in a single afternoon. just in time to surprise the hubby when he got home! (he was so impressed.)

next, install the table leg plates. i tried my best to line up the hole in the center with the original sofa leg hole, and it ended up working out really well. attach these using the four screws included in the package. using an electric screwdriver here is a must!

next comes the fun part- simply screw in the brand new legs! yay!

flip your sofa back over (ha again!) and marvel at your new beautiful legs. *note: be careful as you flip your sofa over! i was so determined to do this solo, that the weight of the sofa flipping over bent one of the leg plates and i had to replace it. next time, i'll just wait for david to get home!

i'm so happy with the way they turned out, and i think they really give ol' karlstad a more modern look. they've been installed for about 6 weeks now and are holding up nice and strong. yay for a successful diy! also, hi toaster!