TL;DR - I've raised the height of the center console by 1½ inches, and it's much more comfortable to lean on now, since it's the same height as the arm rest on the door.
You know how they say it's bad to keep your wallet in your back pocket because it makes you sit crooked and messes up your spine? Well, I haven't kept my wallet in my back pocket for more than 20 years, but I've still messed up my spine by sitting in my Tacoma for so long.
The problem is that the arm rest on the door, and the arm rest on the top of the center console are at different heights, the center console being about 1½ inches lower than the door. That means I'm constantly hunched toward the center of the vehicle - so much so that with my old seats, I could feel a deeper hole on the right side of the driver seat than the left.
While I'd regularly try to adjust my position, and resist the use of the two arm rests at the same time, in the end, I realized the only solution was to fix the problem - I needed to raise the top of the center console.
At first I thought I might do this by somehow upholstering a thicker pad for the top of the lid, but I'm no upholsterer and I knew it would come out looking a bit ... lame. After thinking about it for way to long - though admittedly never all that hard - I realized that I might be able to extend the lower compartment, and simply attach the lid to that extension.
I got started by taking measurements. Inside, and outside of course, so that I could make a small box that would fit into place.
As with anything, it took some finessing of the initial product to get something that fit just right - for instance, the top of the console has a slight crown to it, which I needed to mirror in the bottom of my riser - but in the end, I was quite happy with the appearance, fit, and snugness of my solution.
My walnut-with-maple-spline center console riser.
A couple notes for anyone wanting to do this themselves:
- I used all the same mounting holes for the riser as the original lid used, thereby securing it well and not adding any extra holes that need to be dealt with should I ever want to "undo" my modification.
- The back side of the center console - where the lid hinges - has a recess where the lid mounts. By creating a tenon on the back of the riser that fits snuggly into this recess (mortise), a lot of stability is generated for the riser.
- I wasn't sure how to secure the front of the riser at first, but as I was building it, I realized that I could use a small piece of steel angle to hook into the latch mechanism that the lid originally latched into. Works perfectly.
Performs perfectly, and now I sit much more evenly in the driver seat when I've got my elbows resting on each side.
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