I’ve Got New Legs

Back in June, I shared with you my new table. After a long while of working on it, I had finally got it done. And I really loved it… except for one thing. The legs.

I had always wanted sawhorses to be the legs and when I saw them at Ikea for $15 per trestle, I felt like it was a match made in heaven. I adored how they looked. They were exactly what I wanted in the looks department. But I wasn’t crazy about how they functioned. Here is a photo of the trestle legs:

My sweet Dad had even built an under mount for the legs to slip into. It worked great. But, as I quickly realized, that trestle legs for a dinner table aren’t very functional. The problem comes when you try to slide the chairs in and out. Since the legs get wider at the base, the chairs don’t easily fit between the two trestles. I went from thinking I could comfortably fit 10 people around my table to only being able to fit 4! Simply because of the placement of the sawhorses and the fact that the base gets so wide. We even moved the trestles in a bit more and that helped some, I could now fit 6 chairs but it still wasn’t great. So, I began thinking about new legs.

A couple of months ago, I went to Ikea again and saw some new legs that would work perfectly. They were double the price at $30 each but well worth it if I could fit 10 people around my table again. So, I brought them home. Jason and I finally got around to putting them on the table this past week and we are so glad we did.

It’s not a very bright day outside today so the photos are a bit dark, but hopefully, you get the idea!

We left the same wood under mount because that is what holds the table together. Then we just measured where we wanted all of the chairs to fit and put the legs between the appropriate chairs. It was a pretty simple fix. And so worth it!

And the finished look again:

I love the new style as well as the old. In the photo you can see we only have 6 chairs around. That is how we leave the table normally. The other 4 chairs we use in other rooms of the house (I’m sitting on one right now at my computer) and we just bring them down to the dining room when we need them. We used 8 of the chairs last night for a dinner party and it worked so good. I can tell that adding in two more won’t be a problem. I’m really happy with my new legs!

I also love the brushed nickel finish. It looks nice with the legs of the chairs.

So what do you think of my new legs? I’m planning on re-purposing the old trestle legs next summer for use in an outdoor table. I know I will have the same challenges but we won’t use the outdoor table as often so I will make it work :)

Have any of you bought new furniture that didn’t work out as planned? What did you do about it?