The Insider: Pretty Pegs does table legs

You may recall my previous posts about Pretty Pegs, a Swedish company that ingeniously makes gorgeous, unusual replacement legs for Ikea sofas.

It's a sort of interiors perfectionist's version of the classic fashionista trick of buying a high street coat and replacing the buttons to designer-ish effect.

Well if you liked those, you'll be excited to know that the company has just launched a new range of legs – but not for sofas...

Yep, you can now buy Pretty Pegs for your Ikea tables.

Above, from left to right: Otto; Siri; Otto; Carl; Alfred; Carl; Estelle; Otto; Alfred

What a classy transformation. And the classic gold-topped Estelle legs are rather reminiscent of this Ikea mid-century original.

Each leg design – there are five – comes in three different colours and, like the sofa legs, are pleasingly off-beat (love the asymmetry in the Alfred design, above). But although the legs are made for Ikea tables, a set of them will set you back considerably more than your original Swedish mega-brand purchase – at 160€ (£130 or $218). Is it worth it?

I'll let you be the judge of that – would love to hear what you think.

Meanwhile, I really like that they've made a series of videos to inspire your inner Ikea pimper. Here's one visual guide to creating your own striking bespoke table from a basic black number (an idea for sprucing my own chipboard desk, perhaps...). You can check out more like it on the Pretty Pegs YouTube channel.



Read more about Pretty Pegs

#Cheaphometricks: when is an Ikea sofa not an Ikea sofa?

When Saustark Design has been at it. This Munich-based company has taken the Ikea hacking trend to a clever, commercial level.

Now you can pimp your Swedish buy by adding a customised loose cover in the fabric of your choice (as well as colourful new legs), to take the edge off the ubiquity of your purchase... I wonder how many of us do have an Ikea sofa? (And you can check the rest of your home against this ubiquity list.)

I've written about a company called Pretty Pegs before, which has been selling lovely legs that fit Ikea sofas and armchairs for a few years now. Yes, Saustark has kind of swiped that idea (though with fewer design choices) but it was only a matter of time. It is a fantastic idea, after all. But Saustark cunningly also combine their legs with its own, fairly extensive range of alternative loose covers too. So far, the legs are only available from the German online store, details below, but the company is open to helping buyers from further afield if that's what you're after.

So back to the clever loose covers. Taking the Karlstaad two-seater sofa – pictured below in just four of the fabrics Saustark offers – as an example, your new cover will cost at least half the price you paid for the furniture initially: a cover could cost anything from 166 Euros (£136) for, say, the man-made corduroy type textile, up to around to 239 Euros (£196) for plain cotton.

It's a lot of money to pay on top of buying the sofa in the first place, but if your sofa is old but structurally sound it's a great way to get a new sofa without getting a new sofa. Equally, if you buy covers when you buy the sofa, you'll still probably be paying less than you would for a sofa from pretty much everywhere else – but it won't look like the Ikea sofa that everyone you know has in their front room.

The downside is that you have to choose one of their fabrics (which you can request free samples of to see how it looks in the flesh). There is a lot of choice, but it's a shame they don't offer a service where you can choose fabric elsewhere or send them some and personalise your sofa even more.

Check out Saustartk Design's website for more info. To find the legs, you'll need to go to the German version of the site here.

Oh yes, and if you want to read all about the Ikea backstory, here's a piece I wrote about the brand for the Independent a while back, which features Modern Toss and expletives in the first paragraph.

Post by Kate

Wish lists

Last night a new reader on Twitter said she had loved the Neisha Crosland vinyl floor tiles I featured a while back – and that she'd added them to her wish list.

It got me thinking about wish-lists, what what would be on mine. And then I remembered I had written out a far more prosaic list around a year ago, and stuck it to my fridge door. Twelve months later, I have done precisely two things from it ('snails' and 'dispose of fence' in case you are interested – how glamorous I am – am I the only person with such a dull wish-list?).

But last year was an epic DIY adventure, and it tired me out a bit (especially this part). So roll on the spring and maybe I can cross some things off that damn list at long last.

Meanwhile, I can avoid it with much more interesting shopping wish lists, which I can handily store  right here, rather than on lists stuck on the fridge. Here are a few less boring things on my house wish list...

This ingenious sofa-arm shelf for sale on Etsy (but from Blisscraft and Brazen, a reclaimed wood design store based in Canada, but easy to get a good joiner to make one up for you if you are elsewhere in the world).

A beautiful portrait of a good face, painted in oils, like one of these by Kai Samuels-Davis.

A set of Pretty Pegs, top, for my green sofa, above, which has not very nice ones. Or I may even just finally get around to painting them... when I can decide on a colour...

Pretty Pegs

What a very excellent idea this is: a company that sells Ikea-compatible legs for the Swedish store's sofas and beds. But they come with legs... right? Of course, but those legs are often the very thing that lets down an otherwise lovely piece of furniture. 

It's like buttons on coats – savvy fashionistas often say they will swap the fastenings on a cheap coat to make it look unique and more expensive. The same, now, can be done with your high street furniture. I'd never thought about how beautiful little sofa legs could be until now...

Pretty Pegs is a Swedish online shop that only sells bed and sofa legs, and they are specifically designed to fit and replace standard Ikea legs. They deliver to the UK for 11 euros. Genius.

Prices for the legs start at around 78 euros (for four). Not cheap – but for the dramatic difference they'll make to a cheap piece of furniture, I'm all for them.

If, however, you can't justify the price tag – check out this fantastic DIY post at the wonderful Poppytalk blog about how to make them yourself (see one of its creations, below). You can find furniture leg sellers all over the internet – try Edinburgh Woodturning, which sells through an eBay store. Their sofa legs start at around £6.