Should I try furniture risers for my couch?

August 13, 2024 5:14 PM

My couch/sofa has always been a little lower to the ground than I'd like, but now that I'm recovering from a knee injury the height is actively causing me pain. I cannot buy a new couch right now. I can buy heavy-duty 2-3" furniture risers with an appropriate weight rating. Am I risking damage to my couch if I do? I'm particularly worried about additional strain due to my couch's lack of center support legs. Please tell me if I'm being silly, or there's anything else I should keep in mind!
posted by rhiannonstone to Home & Garden (14 answers total)

If your couch currently lacks center support legs, adding risers shouldn't change the situation at all, since it already appears to not be supported there. As long as you aren't leaving any legs without a riser, the forces involved should be pretty much the same.
posted by Aleyn at 5:24 PM on August 13, 2024 [15 favorites]

Are the risers just some blocks you set your current legs on? If so then there is no difference, load wise, to sitting on the ground. Depending on the riser design it may be less stable but it shouldn't hurt your couch
posted by Mitheral at 5:26 PM on August 13, 2024

Use extra pillows. This raises the height of the seat in the easiest way. You can pile one of the sifa pillows on top of the other if you dont have extra pillows
posted by uans at 6:34 PM on August 13, 2024 [2 favorites]

We Jerry rigged our couch for under $75 to be higher and more supportive / easy to disentangle from -

- swapped the 1” legs for 6” legs (we had to futz a little with the attachment hardware since the socket was different, but it was quite easy with a power drill), under $20

- used paracord to fortify the heck out of the underbelly of the couch, essentially where the metal tines create the bottom layer we looped para cord back and forth a ton until it was extremely taut instead of loose and springy and slightly concave. $10

- we bought an aftermarket wooden slat thingy that lives above the couch frame but under the cushions, keeps them from sinking too much $30 or so
posted by seemoorglass at 7:22 PM on August 13, 2024 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I should have added: I've already tried adding extra pillows and also stacking the existing couch cushions, and those did not work for me for several reasons, so that's no longer an option I'm exploring.

I appreciate both the ideas and the reassurances, though!
posted by rhiannonstone at 7:27 PM on August 13, 2024 [1 favorite]

I had my couch reupholstered; the old cushions had springs and padding, much thicker than the 4" foam replacements. I now store several rugs under the cushions, adding 2 - 3 inches, and it's much easier for me. But risers will be fine, too.
posted by theora55 at 7:39 PM on August 13, 2024

Just make sure the risers have good divots that the couch legs really nest perfectly well into, because if a riser and couch leg lose contact and the couch tips, of course you could re-injure your knee when you brace against the tipping.

And note that a higher couch is maybe a bit of a more "tippy" couch, now with contact points between each riser and leg that are not secured, so I'd be extra careful about dynamic forces onto the back or sides of the couch, like flopping down onto it or sitting in a fast way that "pushes" hard on the back of the couch. Since now, the taller, two-part leg+riser is way more prone to "breaking" than a shorter, single-piece sofa leg would be.

If you can actually change the legs for taller legs that might be even better!
posted by nouvelle-personne at 9:36 PM on August 13, 2024

If setting the height a little higher makes you plop down on the couch a little less hard, it might actually reduce the overall strain on your couch: The moment when you dynamically sit down hard on the couch is going to the moment of greatest stress on the couch in normal usage. So if you are able to reduce that by, say, 25% that is actually pretty significant.

The forces involved in dynamically sitting down will, in general, be a few times larger than the static force of your weight once you have settled down into a relatively static position.
posted by flug at 10:14 PM on August 13, 2024

Your couch doesn't know if it's sitting on the floor or on riser blocks or sitting on top of _insert random thing here_ assuming stable blocks there's absolutely no structural difference for the couch.
posted by deadwax at 5:36 AM on August 14, 2024 [2 favorites]

The easiest and quickest way to do this is to talk to a furniture maker, cabinet maker, or someone similar and have them make what I like to call "furniture skis" for the desired height. These will basically be solid boards that are laminated together to the correct height. Since it will be custom, you can get the exact height that you want.

They will have cups for the feet on the existing couch to sit in so they won't move around and a non-skid surface to sit on the floor, so they will work on hardwood and carpet. Being made of solid wood, they will be solid and will not compress or shift around.

These will be blocks of wood and can be finished to look nice, work well, and match your decor too. Expect to pay a little more than something cheap, but that will be the safest, most secure, and longest lasting option.
posted by Nackt at 5:47 AM on August 14, 2024

We were able to buy 6" wooden legs to replace the 3" plastic legs that came with our sofa. The old ones unscrewed and the new ones screwed into the same bolt hole. Many many couches use the same sized mounts for feet/legs.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:04 AM on August 14, 2024 [4 favorites]

Our couch (ikea kivik) has very very tiny couch legs so we set it up on bed risers. It works great until you need to move the couch, then it’s super annoying.
posted by samthemander at 8:19 AM on August 14, 2024

Note that screwing taller legs into a couch does increase the force on the couch from any side to side/front to back motion. Think about an extreme case where you put 12 or 24 inch legs on. This can cause failure of the mount point.

Probably a moot point in this case as it appears the Ceni couch has integrated legs as part of the structure.
posted by Mitheral at 9:33 AM on August 14, 2024

Response by poster: Yeah unfortunately I also can't replace the legs with taller ones, either, because they are indeed integrated. I've even tried asking Article (who makes the couch) for advice and they got nothin'.

I'm currently looking for a pretty quick solution, so not yet ready to engage woodworkers.

I had NOT yet considered something solid or mostly solid between the frame and the cushions. That might solve the issues I have with more pillows and stacking cushions, and I might give that a try, too, either as an alternative solution or to pair with relatively shorter risers that would presumably give me more stability.
posted by rhiannonstone at 12:46 PM on August 14, 2024