A Quick Fix For Those Inexpensive Upholstered Chairs

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When you buy an inexpensive upholstered chair, have you noticed that they seem to sit slightly lower to the ground than other chairs?  I think the normal seat height for an upholstered chair is around 19″ – 20″ from the floor, but most of the inexpensive ones that I’ve seen are only 17.5″ – 18.5″ high.  I’ve always assumed that it’s a money saving thing for the manufacturer and is one reason why the chair isn’t more costly.

Usually, I just live with the slightly lower chair, but the chairs for our office makeover were just a bit too low.  The seat of these chairs was only around 17″ high.  Pookie and I are tall people, so we really noticed the lower height.  

I love these chairs and think that they’re perfect for our office, so I certainly didn’t want to replace them!  My solution involved a quick trip to Home Depot to purchase unfinished furniture legs that are 2.5″ taller than the ones that the chairs came with.  In this image, you can see that I’ve already replaced the legs on the chair on the right.  Can you see the slight difference in height compared to the chair on the left?

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Let me show you what an easy fix this was!

Step 1: Purchase the number of unfinished legs that you need for your chair(s).  I used THESE LEGS from Home Depot that measure 9″ long.  You’ll also need a pair of vice grips.

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Step 2: If you’re like me and need the bolt to be longer in order for the new leg to grip the hole in the chair where the current legs are located, carefully grip the hanger bolt with the vice grips and remove it from the leg.  You may need to wrap the bolt with a rag or something to avoid messing up the threads of the screw.  I actually wrapped a jar lid gripper around mine.

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Step 3: Spray paint or stain the legs to the color that you desire.  Mine are painted with satin finish black spray paint.  Here you can see the removed hanger bolt.  The end with the wide-apart threads is what goes down into the leg.  The end with the threads closer together is what screws into the chair.

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Step 4: Carefully, use the vice grips to replace the hanger bolt into the leg.  Remember to avoid messing up the threads!  Only screw the bolt in as far as the wide-apart threads.  You can compare this photo to the first one to see how much longer the hanger bolt is now.  If you purchase replacement legs that already have a long enough hanger bolt, this step won’t be necessary.

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Step 5:  Unscrew the original legs from your chair and replace them with the new, longer ones.  Done!  The height of the chair seats now measures 19.5″ from the floor.

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This is just a minor detail in the grand scheme of things, but I think that our office chairs look much better at the taller height.  Plus, they’re more comfortable for us too.

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Catch Up On The Office Makeover!

 

NEW CHAIRS AND GETTING STARTED WITH MY OFFICE MAKEOVER

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THE NEXT STEP IN OUR OFFICE MAKEOVER

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MY HIGH STYLE – LOW COST OFFICE STORAGE SOLUTION

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RUSTIC INDUSTRIAL OFFICE WALL DECOR

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