DIY Bun Feet To Give Your Furniture An Instant Design Upgrade

IKEA, Target, and Walmart are great places to get classic furniture on a budget. However, beds, cabinets, and chairs from these budget retailers tend to come with simple, blocky legs or plain, slightly tapered feet. In the past, when furniture was custom-made by craftspeople, you could get a chair with elegant scroll-shaped legs or stunning curved sabre legs. Another style especially popular from the late 1700s to early 1800s is the bun foot. As indicated by the name, this is a globe-shaped foot with a bulbous look. Incorporating this style into a modern piece of furniture is a sure way to make your interior design stand out.

Creator @mishkashoe took to Instagram to show how she transformed a low platform bed into a raised bed with customized bun feet she made with a simple DIY project. By adding oversized bun feet to her bed frame, she created a sleek and functional look that also allowed for additional under-the-bed storage space. These DIY bun feet are cleverly constructed using two wooden bowls, rim-to-rim, with the original furniture legs screwed into the hollow space inside for structure and support. The resulting design is modern and chic, elevating your bed on these unique spherical legs. Keep reading to learn how to create these fun bed legs step-by-step.

Creating chic bun feet using this Ikea wooden bowl hack is easier than you might think. Follow @mishkashoe's tutorial, which uses the original legs as a support system for the new design. All you need for this DIY transformation is four sets of wooden bowls (all identical), a drill, four tiny blocks of scrap wood, and some Gorilla glue. 

First things first: Detach the original legs from your bed, and measure them before you go bowl shopping. The bowls you select will be glued rim-to-rim to form a sphere shape. Keep in mind that the original bed legs must fit inside the sphere. The combined depth of each bowl should be greater than the height of your original legs.

Once you have selected eight bowls, drill a hole in the base of four of them, using a drill bit that will accommodate the screws from your bed's original feet. Attach the original legs through each hole. You should now have four half-spheres with the original legs in the middle. Use your four remaining bowls to complete each sphere. If there is any extra space between the base of the original foot and the base of your second bowl, use a handy wood block to fill the rest of the space. Glue the space-filling block to the base of the second bowl, then glue the bowls together. Now, you can screw the new posts into the bed frame.

If you love this hack, you can use it on almost any piece of furniture, including low tables. YouTuber Lone Fox shows how to make larger spherical bun feet for a custom coffee table that incorporates a rustic top stained dark brown. However, you can stain or paint your completed feet to match any tabletop you like.  

To match something like a rugged burlwood table top, try a more ornate version of the bun feet. For this, you can purchase a wood chisel kit and try your hand at wood carving. Different types of hand chisels are used to make different patterns. Paring chisels and gouge chisels are both useful for texturing the surface of your bowl. 

Or, for a more modern version like a plexiglass tabletop, use more minimalistic feet stained or painted a sleek hue like a matte black. You can also use the bun feet as an accent to stand out against a more subdued choice like a white tabletop. Coat them in a bright hue for an unexpected, but creative, pop of color.