A little country for Kilippan

Materials: Klippan footstool, wood sofa legs, metal mounting plates

Description: The tube metal legs have always been my least favorite part of my Klippan loveseat and footstools. (I liked them even less when I saw the cool angled wooden legs that first came with the sofa in the 1970s: http://vimeo.com/5821682) I will admit, I probably spent just as much time online researching how to do this hack than I did actually putting it together.

Online I was able to find some shapely turned wood furniture legs rather cheaply, which would give a cool 'minimalist cottage' look to my footstools. I was expecting to have to switch out the hanger bolts for metric ones. I was pleasantly surprised when the bolts that came on the legs fit the threads on the footstools. However, I ran into two problems with the diameter of the legs, and the length of the bolts.

It was quick to switch out the bolts - I happened to have a number of other table legs in m basement with shorter bolts.

Now how to deal with the diameter problem? I did not want to attach anything to the bottom of the leg mounts because that would have made the stool higher. I finally settled on the idea of beefing up the sides of the mounts with scrap wood and screwing a new leg mount plate to this. When I started work on the footstools I decided that anchoring the plates with just two screws was sturdy enough. (Really- no wiggle.) The plates went on at an angle which moved the hole over far enough so the wooden legs would fit. It only added about 1/4 of an inch to the height.

I do plan on painting them- just not sure what color yet! I changed out the loveseat legs too, but that required no modification!

Costs-
Klippan Footstools x2 (one from As Is for $30, the other $45 at the time I think)
Wood sofa legs x8, $3.50 each
Metal mounting plates x8, $1.70 each

Tools-
Vice-grips (to change hangar bolts)
Cordless drill/driver

~ Katey Corrigan, Massachusetts, USA

Spice it Up! Klippan Sofa

Materials: RIT dye, salt, washing machine, Klippan sofa slipcover

Description: When I moved into my Lower Greenville apartment in Dallas, I had a limited budget to outfit an entire apartment. So, of course, I went to every budget-lover's dream store, IKEA! They didn't have the couches I originally picked out in stock (thank goodness, because they would have been horrible once I got a dog and boyfriend!), so I chose to invest in the Klippan Sofa. It retails for $229, and has a great shape and size for what I was looking for.

Yet I thought it lacked a little pizazz when it came to slipcovers. You can choose from black, white, natural, primary blue, creepy-quilted, crazy pixel birds, or denim. None of which matched the urban-chic I was going for.

So what's a gal to do? She goes to the drugstore and buys a few bottles of RIT dye! The process is amazingly simple. Soak your slipcover in the bathtub, start your washer and follow the directions on the bottle. I used a mixture of purple and fuchsia to come up with this eggplant color. It was absolute perfection. I adored my purple couches, and if you take a look at the RIT website, the options really are endless! They have a gorgeous honeysuckle rose, the perfect shade of aqua, and so much more.

When it was time to move out of my apartment and into a home with my husband, I gifted both couches to a friend of mine. Her decor didn't include purple, however, so she bought two natural slipcovers and did a little dyeing of her own. These are actually crimson in person, not orange.

As you can see, I didn't have my camera settings quite figured out six months ago! These slipcovers are a lot cheaper than their leather counterparts, and can be a ton more fun. I tried to talk her into the aqua, but she opted for red. If I ever invest in another IKEA slip-covered piece, you can bet your biscuits I'll be dying it something bright and fun!

See more of the dyed Klippan slipcovers.

~ Brooke, Lake Jackson, Texas