Customize Ikea Furniture Legs With Paint, step by step

That is right, Karl‘s legs are pale no more. After some thought we chose to give all 12 of our sectional’s low-cost looking birch legs a coat of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint to deepen them and give them a subtle sheen and dimension that brown paint simply would not offer. It was fairly straightforward except it necessitated a bit of Karl disassembly. Poor guy.

But once we got all of those legs off it was as plain as sanding each of them with low grit paper by hand (I used 60 grit stuff I had around).

Although the legs looked pale and stain-less, they in fact had some sort of clear finish on them (here is one before sanding):

So in order to get the best adhesion for long-term durability, we hoped to make sure to create the most gritty (and grippy) wood surface that we could. Hence the swift sanding step (here is the same leg after sanding):

It is subtle in the pics, but hopefully you can see how the sandpaper stripped off that shine and left the wood looking raw and ready for paint (which consistently sticks a lot better to non-glossy surfaces).

And before I sprayed them, I also took out the little furry floor-protecting pads on the bottom since I did not want them to get all gunked up with paint. They peeled off fairly easily and still had sufficient sticky stuff left to go back on pleasant and securely afterwards.

So after each leg was un-padded it was time for their little makeover. Here is what I went with: Rustoelum Universal Metallic spray paint in “oil-rubbed bronze” with a trigger spray nozzle (here is an affiliate link to it on Amazon for anyone looking for it). It is fairly fumey stuff so I laid out some cardboard and did all the spraying outside while wearing a mask that I am sure freaked out all of the neighborhood squirrels.

Here are all of Karl’s legs after being doused with coat one of their new “spray tan” (I in fact applied three thin coats for especially even and non-drippy coverage):

Oh and for those of you looking for a few swift spray painting pointers, here ya go:

• Skip the low-cost $2 stuff in favor of the $7+ quality stuff (I like Rustoleum’s trigger spray nozzle because it goes on thin and even and does not get all over your fingers).
• Consistently keep the can moving. If you are a-sprayin’ your arm better be a-swayin’.
• Keep the nozzle about 8-10″ away from whatever you are spray painting.
• You truly want a mist, not a heavy wet coating.
• Three thin and even coats are better than one thick and drippy one.
• Spray paint has yet to go no-VOC, so apply it outside with a mask, and let it fully cure as long as the can recommends outside whenever you can (typically 24 hours, we try to double that simply to be even safer).
• You can “seal” any spray paint (to limit any off-gassing at all once you bring it inside) by applying two thin coats of Safecoat Acrylacq, which is low-VOC and non-toxic.

So once I applied my three supa thin coats of oil-rubbed bronze spray paint, I simply let them “cure” outside for 48 hours (12 of them were spent in the sun and the next 36 were spent in the carport because I worried it might rain) while our living room looked like this:

Yup, for two days that was the look. It was in fact kind of lively to sit on our especially low sofa. And Clara had a ball climbing on and off of it like she never could when it was up on legs. It was nearly a shame to put them back on. Except for the fact that our living room looked crazy and getting off of such a low sofa while holding a 20 pound baby girl was not exactly enjoyable.

Thanks to two days of outdoor drying time, by the time I brought in our newly bronzed legs they were pleasant and hard. Nearly coin-like thanks to the oil-rubbed bronze paint that created a sleek finish. It is hard to depict that in photos, but it has a pleasant metal-like sheen when you see it from distinct angles. And when the light hits it, it sort of bounces off and reflects like glass. Thankfully they did not smell all nasty and spray-paint-y after 48 hours of drying time outside (even when I stuck my nose right up against them like a weirdo). If they had I certainly would have applied two thin coats of Safecoat Acrylacq as I mentioned in the last bullet above though.

Then all that was left to do was to stick those furry floor-protecting pads back onto the bottom of each leg and cheer John on as he screwed them back into place (he’s the allen wrench ninja of our house). Bam, Karl was back to his old self. Only slightly more handsome and dapper. And can I simply say that it felt inordinately excellent to have the living room put back together again?

See how the side of this leg seems to glimmer in the pic above? That is the difference between choosing a metallic oil-rubbed spray paint and a deep brown paint or stain. That smidge of glitz simply does it for me. But of course stain or paint could have totally worked too, it simply depends what tickles your fancy.

In fact from certain angles and in lower lighting situations (like at night) it reads a bit more like a rich chocolate wood stain, which we certainly do not mind.

So simply for kicks, let us flash back to Karl’s legs when they were all pale and birch-y:

And here is the man of the house now. The difference is not heart-stoppingly remarkable or anything, but as far as details go, it is certainly a bit less “look at my squat little birch legs” than the original look. Most of all, look how glad Beansie is about the change. Simply kidding, she’s simply psyched to be on her go-to rug ever with a few toys. Oh to be a baby again.

And it’ll likely feel even more cohesive in there when we add oil-rubbed bronze curtain rods to the window and sliders (along with all the other stuff we are craving, like a big console table behind Karl and a larger entertainment unit to add balance). But for now we are simply loving how our giant $1,248 sectional looks even more like the too-rich-for-our-blood $4,496 version from Room & Board that we fell in love with a while back:

Yay for a little sectional elevating sandpaper & spray paint adventure. If only my blindingly pale leg problem was that straightforward to solve…

Psst- Check out the weirdest baby toy that we have ever seen (p.s. Clara adores it) right here on BabyCenter.