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February 27, 2008
Leveling furniture on sloping floors
Our frame house is more than 130 years old. Naturally the floors slope a bit (in some cases, more than a bit). We have some pieces of furniture -- a sideboard, a few big chairs, a table -- that we want to level as much as we can. Has anyone come across a good product for this, perhaps small adjustable footings to tap into the bottom of table and chair legs? So far I have found these small white plastic shims, but they show too much and you have to place them again everytime you move the furniture. I haven't found anything else that is helpful. Anyone have this problem and how did you solve it?
Comments
I'd find out what the manufacturers use. I bought some home office furniture from Harden (based in upstate NY) - and was pleased to see that every leg has a metal tube sunk into it, with a long screw inside that I can adust by hand (up to more than 1 3/4 inches, it seems, which was great for my sloping floor in the room I put the furniture in). On the bottom of the screw is the round foot that sits on the floor. I seems you could easily drill a hole and insert these in existing furniture, if it was solid wood (I wouldn't try it with composite.)
Were I in your position, I'd call them and see if I could find out from them what they use, or talk to other furniture manufacturers who use something similar, to find out where you can buy them. Or google "furniture levelers" and see what comes up.
What impressed me about the ones Harden used is that they adjusted further than I expected - way more than you'd need in a newer house, but perfect for my old, very sloping, brownstone apartment.
Posted by: guest at February 27, 2008 5:22 PM
Matchbooks and tunafish cans work for me :-)
Posted by: denton at February 27, 2008 5:44 PM
Magazines, scraps of wood work too. Matchbooks are way too small for our place. After a while, you won't even notice. We actually sawed the legs off a cheap piece of furniture so we wouldn't have to shim.
Posted by: guest at February 27, 2008 6:56 PM
today they have all kinds of adjustable taps.
You can almost find them in any decent hardware store. good luck.
Posted by: guest at February 27, 2008 11:05 PM
My landlord gave us a bunch of shingles, but any angled shim should work.
Posted by: thwackamole at February 28, 2008 12:19 AM
Most large pieces of wood furniture have metal or plastic protectors on the bottom (like large thumb tacks). Remove these, add as many washers to the low end legs as needed to even them out, then put the feet back on. That is a little less noticeable than matchbooks etc.
Posted by: ownhs at February 28, 2008 9:49 AM
Hold your head at an angle and everything will look normal
Posted by: guest at February 28, 2008 10:20 AM
Thanks for all the, er, helpful suggestions. Shims, "tuna cans" and the like are what I have been using for the items I know I won't be moving around, but some of these I will be moving. The first poster is pointing me towards the kind of thing I am looking for. I have not seen anything like an adjustable tap in HD, Lowe's, Leopoldi's and the like. Washers, followed by a tap in felt pad may do the trick, so I will look into that as well.
10:20: That's what the realtor said. Now I'm stuck with the house.
Thanks, everyone.
Posted by: slopefarm at February 28, 2008 4:19 PM
First poster here, glad to be of help.
If you need a lot of adjustment, I wouldn't trust tap in's for heavy furniture anyway - seems like something that you had to stick in via a drilled hole would be sturdier. (I have this image of a large heavy piece of furniture snapping off, or bending, a tap-in when you try to move it.)
Posted by: guest at February 28, 2008 5:52 PM
First poster again - looked at one of my desk legs. The tube is not as long as the screw (and the screw not actually as long as I first remembered). They look just like the T-nuts in this picture - only my feet are plastic, not steel - which don't look like they'd take much drilling to install.
http://www.wobblytables.com/tableglides.htm
Posted by: guest at February 28, 2008 6:06 PM
Cork is the best because it's not as visible, it can be stained darker if need be, and it also grips to the floor.
I believe using cork is pretty standard for this.
Posted by: guest at February 28, 2008 8:40 PM
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