Cutting it down to size

J's old desk chair was obtained from some random big box store. It's a wobbly ill-shapen mess that has become increasing fragile due to the over-use of cardboard in its construction. We've kept it for so long for a simple reason - J's desk is a very odd height. It's counter-height, but with a drawer below it. So, it's effectively halfway between a counter-height chair and a dining room chair. Which is not a common height.

During our many trips to Ikea to pick out baby furniture we found that the new Ikea INGOLF was, at least by eyeball, about the right height. So we bought it, figuring that if it was too tall, we could always cut it down.

After bringing it home and building it, we found, of course, it was about 2.5 inches too tall.

So, out came the mitre boxes, rulers, tape, pencils, and wood saws. First I taped off the legs (hoping to reduce splitting of the veneer when sawing), then I marked off 2.5 inches from the bottom of the feet on all sides. It was tricky because the legs are curved.

I then got the bottom of the leg at a right angle to the side of the mitre box. Just with some eyeballing. I was very concerned I would be cutting the legs off at an odd angle, but I didn't have a good idea how to cut it to precisely 90 degrees. 

I had two wood saws, with about the same saw tooth shape and size. But one only got through about 1/8 of the leg with 60 seconds of furious sawing, while the other got through the entire leg in less than a minute.

Did this three more times and was relieved to find that the chair was mostly level, despite my sloppy measuring and cutting. I then chamfered the bottom edges of the feet with a Dremel, so they would be less likely to split in the future.

The boss approves.