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Raising a sofa with furniture casters to turn it into a dining settee bench

DIY projects· furniture makeover· Home Improvement

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This post may contain affiliate links from which I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

First of all Happy New Year! I hope you had a wonderful break and holiday season! I’m ready to blog again!

… and wow isn’t that an exciting title to start with? Uhmmmm nope … but let me tell you it’s a project that I should have tackled much much sooner because the outcome is literally life changing for us. I had bought the antique silk velvet sofa in our dining room years ago, yup years ago at a local auction but the seating height was not meant for a dining table. It was just too low and I had put solving this issue on the back burner. I just always apologized to people who sat at our table by saying that I didn’t get to fixing the issue yet and that they should just focus on how comfy the settee actually is and not the fact that they are sitting at the table like children who just aren’t as tall yet as everyone else. Yeah I’m rolling my eyes at myself as I’m typing.

Part of this project paralysis was due to the fact that I didn’t know exactly what I could use to raise the seating. I mean I knew that I could use furniture casters but there are so many options out there and the legs of our settee are slightly curved. Drilling holes into the slight bend scared me a little.

So since I’m giving our dining room a mini makeover, I finally decided to reach out to D. Lawless Hardware to see if they could help me. It was definitely the right decision because they are awesome and super responsive. We narrowed it down to two types of casters I could use for my dining settee. Let me show you:

The 1 inch brushed petite stem caster and the 1 1/4″ solid wood caster w/ sleeve.

You see most dining room tables are around 30 inches high and a standard chair height is around 18 inches from the floor to the seat. Our settee seat is almost 17 inches high so the 1 1/4 caster took it to the desired 18″ height since there should be 12 inches between the seat of your chair and your tabletop.

Plus the wood caster’s weight rating was higher than the brass caster and the chance that the wood caster would scratch my floors would be much lower than the brass casters as well.

So wood casters was the choice for us.

How I turned a standard antique sofa into a dining settee bench

Tools needed:

  • casters
  • hammer
  • chisel or flat head screwdriver
  • drill and 3/8″ drill bit

Let me show you what I did:

I removed the old metal pins from all 5 feet with a chisel.

turning a sofa into a dining settee bench

I use the 3/8″ drill bit to drill holes into all 5 legs.

drilling into the legs of a dining settee bench

I had to make sure that I didn’t drill too far into the curved legs.

applying casters to dining settee bench

Then I placed the sleeve pin on to the holes and hammered them into place.

dining settee bench caster application

hammering sleeves into legs of dining settee bench

And all that was left to do was push the wheels/casters into place until I heard a locking sound.

adding furniture casters to dining settee bench

And voila…DONE!

furniture casters on dining settee bench

raising seat height of dining settee bench

And now we finally have dining room seating that is appropriate for a standard table.

using a sofa as dining settee bench

Maya agrees that it is awesome.

dining settee bench seating

dining settee bench transformation

Here are some old photos where the settee didn’t have wheels yet. You can’t tell that it is too low though:

Neutral eclectic dining room with blue accents

modern eclectic dining room with colorful abstract art and brass urchin chandelier

UPDATE: The dining room makeover is done and you can see it HERE!

settee sofa as dining room bench

So next time when you are looking at a small scaled sofa or antique settee at a yard sale or auction, then picture it in your dining room or eat-in kitchen.
Everyone loves sitting on our piece because it’s so comfortable and I also think it’s super stylish and unconventional. I love it and I’m glad that it is finally raised to standard dining chair height.

I can’t wait to show you what the wall molding looks like and if you are following me on Instagram then you have already seen it in my stories (HERE).

I’ve also been so upset about how things ended up with Anthony. I wrote an email to my subscribers about him right before Christmas but I’m heartbroken to report that he passed away a day after Christmas. It is just so sad. I updated an old post about him, so if you feel like reading up about it then you can do so by clicking HERE and scrolling to the bottom.

Tschüß,

 

 

Previous Post: « Natural Christmas Decorations
Next Post: Friday Favorites: favorite cascading chandeliers »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Maggie says

    January 7, 2019 at 10:30 am

    Brilliant idea! Love the finished look too. Kudos!

    • Julia says

      January 7, 2019 at 1:01 pm

      Thank you Maggie!

  2. donna says

    January 7, 2019 at 11:07 am

    i am so very sorry about Anthony. I wonder how he passed? I know you did everything you could possibly do for him. You said he seemed happy to go back and be with his friends. I’m so glad for that. Bless his little soul in heaven. We will all be reunited with our precious four legged babies in heaven one day.

    • Julia says

      January 7, 2019 at 1:03 pm

      Poor Anthony

  3. carol says

    January 7, 2019 at 12:03 pm

    You always impress me,especially with your skills…the ones I wish MY husband had!
    Did you learn this at your fathers knee?
    Is your husband as handy as you?
    Does he think it’s sexy you know the difference between your drill bits?
    🙂

    • Julia says

      January 7, 2019 at 12:52 pm

      Hi Carol, you are making me giggle.
      I learned to be handy because I had to since my husband isn’t handy at all.
      But I don’t think that he thinks it is sexy LOL.

  4. Marty says

    January 10, 2019 at 8:29 am

    I left you a message about the 2019 Spring Home Tour Get back to me asap please.

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Cuckoo4Design


I’m a German citizen living in the US who is cuckoo for all things DIY, design and pets. This is my design journey of our small home on a budget. Come stay a while and look around.

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