Furniture feet

[gene]

I have two love seats that the customer wants me to raise up three inches. The feet are part of the frame, not the kind that unscrew. What is the best way to add three inches to the feet? I googled it but could only find people using the screw on feet.

One thought I had was to cut the feet off flush with the bottom of the frame and screw on a metal plate that receives the bolt from feet that  screw into the plate.

I'm also wondering how often do you raise the feet on furniture. Is this something that you mention to people as an added item to your estimate? A lot of the older furniture is really low to the ground.

Thanks,

gene

[MinUph]

Gene,
  You can cut off the legs as long as they are square cuts or you square them up after the cut. If this is a good idea will depend on the length of the existing legs. Your adding 3". If you have a 5" leg now thats an 8" screw on leg. This has to be perfectly flush fitting to be strong. If there is a way to build a new leg into the frame it would be stronger.
  It is easy to take a saw to a leg but making it a good cut is not easy. I must say I've seen more botch jobs than good. But is is possible. I have done many through the years. I would never just offer it as an option. That will always come from the client.

[65Buick]

I can't figure why they made seating so low. Maybe it was all design and not ergonomics? It's like riding in a kharmann ghia.

Obviously now manfs know they'd never sell anything that low to the ground.

[SteveA]

As long as you can saw off the legs why not make a frame 3 inches thick to go between the sawed off portion of the leg and the underside of the furniture.  You can attach the legs permanently to the frame and screw the frame into the underside of the furniture.  The fabric will hide the new wood. 
Also I have videos for sale if you're interested ...... How to Make your Sofa Taller !  90 minutes full color !
SA

[baileyuph]

The current leg situation is integrated into the frame - a very strong connection.  Sawing
the legs off from the frame to insert an insert can be made to work, and will if the connection of the
legs to the 3 inch insert is as strong as the integrated leg currently is-- I assume the 3 inch insert
might be plywood or ?.

There is no other way than working at this problem from the leg geometry, as discussed?

It would be interesting to see all the geometry- now to understand:

a.  What is the current seat height from floor?  About 18 inches is a norm isn't it?

b.  I guess, there is something else to know if customer wants to get into a modification like   
      discussed?

c.   Probably more understandable to see the scenario?

Good luck,

Doyle

[gene]

The customer wants the top of the seat cushions to be 19" above the ground. They are 17" now.

I cut the legs off as mentioned. I hope that steveA's suggestion to do that was not another one of his jokes. With the sofa upside down, I clamped a wood block to the side of the frame and level with the bottom edge of the frame. This allowed me to rest my hand saw on the wood block to keep it perpendicular with the sofa frame. Two love seats and all 8 legs got cut off OK.

I will use 1" x 3" x 6' pine boards to build a frame and screw it with glue to the bottom of the sofa. The 3" is nominal 2 1/2" and that's close enough for me. If they complain about it being 1/2" too high I'll tell them that my shop floor must be 1/2" lower then their floor. :-)

Do you think 2 wood dowels and glue for each leg will keep the legs from collapsing and killing their cat?

Thanks,

gene

[SteveA]

Work work work - plus vetting Kavanaugh -  not enough time in the day.
Kidding aside - I like the frame idea.  To steady it up further possibly run a cross rail or two between the 2 long boards and two short boards.
You could install diagonal corner supports and maybe run a large # 12 screw through the corner support into the leg.
Lastly for the best glue up - besides the dowels use 12 hour epoxy.  The connection between the flat of the leg and the underside of the frame will be so strong it wouldn't matter if there were dowels or not.
Can you post a photo - not of Kavanaugh.... but of the furniture
SA