How to add feet to an old piece of furniture

(FOX 2) - This week, our Jill of All Trades, Jill Washburn, shows us how she took a piece of used furniture and rehabbed it, giving it new life. 

Jill found her piece on Facebook Marketplace. It's actually a Pottery Barn piece that has taken a little bit of abuse. Jill paid $120 for this piece, which was maybe a little high, says Jill, but she knew it was a really well made piece of furniture, in a style she liked, and in a size that would fit the space she was looking to fill.

Jill was looking for something that she could use as a buffet or sideboard in her dining room, and she had some size restrictions that she was working within. This piece checked all the boxes, except for height and color but, in Jill's book, those two limitations were easily remedied.

This piece originally sat flat on the floor. While it looked good, it was going to be a problem in the spot Jill was filling because the heat vent was there. Also, she wanted something a bit taller, so it made sense to add feet to the bottom. That way, the feet would add nearly 5 inches to the height and would allow airflow underneath for the heat vent.

Jill bought 4 French bun feet at the Rockler store. Each one had a double threaded lag bolt in it, so it could be screwed into it. The problem Jill ran into was that the lag bolt wasn't threaded all the way. Also, Jill wasn't absolutely sure that the base of the piece would accommodate the length of the bolt. She decided to improvise.

First, Jill removed the lag bolts from the feet. Then she placed the feet on pieces of poplar that were cut into 5" squares. Jill centered the top of the foot on the square and traced a circle around it. That gave her guidance on where the screws should go. Next, she drilled 7 pilot holes in the poplar blocks; 1 just in from each corner (outside the circle) and 3 inside the circle (in a triangle shape). She repeated this for all four square block/foot pairs.

Next, she glued (with Gorilla Glue) the top of the foot to the square, keeping it centered in the original circle, and she let it dry. Once it was dry Jill drove 3 screws into it from the top, using the pilot holes inside the circle, to permanently fasten the foot to the block. She repeated that step until all four feet were attached to their respective poplar squares.

Then, it was time to attached them to the bottom of the piece. Jill marked lines about 3/4" in from the edges on all four corners. One by one, she lined up the edges of the squares with the lines on the corners and screwed the squares/feet to the bottom of the piece, using the pilot holes that she had drilled through corners of the blocks earlier.

With all four feet firmly attached, it was onto the next step, repairing some of the damage. Jill patched a couple of gouges in the top with filler. She used Durham's Water Putty. When it was dry, she gave it a light sanding by hand so that the surface was nice and level.

Time to paint! Jill decided that white chalk paint would look good on this piece and she already had a can of it at home. She gave the entire piece two coats. When it was done, she decided that it looked a little too bland, so she went back and painted the back wall of the two shelf areas with some black paint, to give the piece more depth.

Now, it looks spectacular and it has new life in Jill's dining room. Something like this, new, would've been several hundred dollars. Doing it this way, this piece of furniture and the feet cost Jill just under $200.

PROJECT RATING: Medium

To watch Jill take you through the process just click on the video player above.