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19 Comments

  1. Rio Mavuba says:

    Looks great! Did you use a pre-stain conditioner or a post-stain polyurethane coating? Are those steps required for a project of this size? I would imagine that I’d want to run my vacuum cleaner under the couch, which is the only time during which the legs ‘may’ get banged around.

    1. It’s been a while, but if I remember right we did do a polyurethane coat when we finished – we usually do on all staining projects, just in case. No pre-stain treatment, though. They’ve held up beautifully so far, I definitely would recommend the project!

  2. When you eventually get around to replacing the legs, I would like to suggest getting the ones they sell on Etsy. I own two sets of them, for my sofa and my free standing chaise, and love them. The man who makes them found the right sized bolts, so all you have to do is screw them in to the existing holes in the frame. Unlike the replacement legs on “Our Mid Century” ‘s blog, this requires no carpentry or manipulation of the frame.!

    Here’s a photo of mine:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/k2yhe/5632710766/in/photostream/

    and my chaise:
    http://www.flickr.com/photos/k2yhe/5632710782/in/photostream/

    1. Thanks for the tip! We’ll definitely keep that in mind! 🙂

  3. I love Manhattan Nest too! The stain is definitely an improvement!

  4. Wow the stain makes a big difference. I love the updated look! Thanks for entering my giveaway, good luck!

  5. I would have never thought to do that, but it looks great! 🙂

  6. That looks great!! It makes a huge difference 🙂

    We’re looking at that exact couch, you guys seems to love it. Is it comfortable? How long have you had it? How’s the quality?

    1. We’ve only had it for about four months, but we love it! It’s kind of stiff at first, but once it gets worn in a bit its very comfortable (It took ours maybe a month to get feeling really comfy). It’s incredibly easy to clean since the slipcovers are machine washable, and it’s held up wonderfully so far!

  7. I honestly didn’t think it would make a huge difference, but it sure did!! I personally like those legs, and wouldn’t change them now that they are darker. But, I am excited to see what you change them to! We are getting a flat screen TV as our Christmas present to each other (my husband and I, that is) so I think I want to DIY the entertainment center, since we are doing the wall mount (good call on painting the cord, btw. I am debating getting one of those cord protectors and then painting that…I would think it would look better than cords. Thoughts on this?). But I think that would have to wait til it warms up around here

    Sorry for the ramble! 🙂

    1. It definitely makes a huge difference – we’re so glad we did it!

      We actually didn’t paint our television cords – they’re currently just hanging out on the wall (which is a total eyesore!) but we plan on eventually running them behind the wall so you can’t see them. We’ve used those cord protectors in the past, and once you paint over them they are definitely significantly less noticeable! My favorite option, though, is always to run them behind the wall. It’s super cheap and gets rid of them completely! I’ll elaborate on the process once we get around to actually doing it (hopefully within the next couple of weeks!)

  8. They look great! I have some dark walnut Minwax in the garage, maybe we need to stain our Karlstad legs too. You have inspired me!!

    1. If you do, make sure you sand them really well. I missed a few spots and luckily was able to hide it fairly well. The problem that I encountered was due to the stain being so close to a natural finish, it was almost impossible to tell the spots you have sanded and the ones you haven’t. That is until you get the new stain on them and those spots won’t take any stain.

  9. Just a warning – we have the same couch, and I replaced the legs with cute mid-century looking ones I found on ebay. The problem was that the couch was totally not sturdy any more. You’d plop yourself down and the whole thing would seem to sway. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, Ikea knew what they were doing when they made the blocky legs for this couch. So, after living with the pretty legs for a few weeks, we switched back to the Ikea ones – which we stained because the birch wood drove me crazy, too.

    1. This is why I love having a blog! Thank you so much for your comment. We will defiantly keep that in mind when we eventually replace these.

  10. Definitely looks better! We changed the legs on a vintage couch in my office – it had roller legs (seriously, they were odd) that made the couch sit really low and I wanted it higher and more modern. We ended up using metal legs from Ikea and they look great!

  11. That was one great free change up for your couch! Love the darker legs.

  12. The stain makes such a difference! I love the way it looks! And what an easy (and cheap) project with a big impact.