Frustrated to no end!

[Lexee15]

**I am soooooo frustrated, I have a round wood table in the eat-in kitchen, it’s lopsided!!! It’s been a little off since I got it, but it seems like it’s getting worse!

It actually LOOKS lopsided now and I put a pencil in the middle and it rolls down the lopsided side! Is there anything I can do to fix it without having to put something under the table base? The table has one fat column in the middle, it’s like a pedestal kind of thing with a base and the round table top, it doesn’t have four legs like other tables. Help me please:doh2: I don’t know what else to do!**

 

[BlestOne]

Lexee!!!

Hey girl! Where the table top attaches to the base(on the underside of the table), you should be able to check and see if it is all tightened down… if it is, you can loosen the low point and shim it up there either with a standard shim or remove the bolt and add washers between the top and base then tighten back up.

 

[CarrieH]

I have a table like that; mine is a heavy oak pedestal table. You could put something under the leg-parts of the pedestal on the side that droops, but that will show. It’s not hard to fix it from under the tabletop – that’s what I did with mine. If you go to the hardware store, you can buy some wood shims. They sell them by the bag and they are quite cheap. They look like a short ruler that tapers down from about 1/4" thick down to almost flat. All you have to do is get underneath the table, loosen the bolts that attach the tabletop to the pedestal (you don’t have to take it all the way off), and slide a couple of those shims in the crack on the side that is lowest. It’s easiest if you have someone else standing there to pull up on the tabletop when you’re sliding the shims in and to check to see when the top becomes level, but you can do this yourself if there’s nobody around to help (I did!). Once you’ve got it where it needs to be, just tighten the bolts and you’re good until the next time you move and have the take the tabletop off again. Good luck!

 

[Lexee15]

How do you keep a wood table clean? I can’t use a tablecloth cause monkey boy (ds) would bring it down with everything on top of it!!! I use place mats, but stuff spills or goes through it, I end up with rings from glasses/cups, etc. What is the best way to clean a wood table that gets food, drinks and sticky stuff on it? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated .

 

[puzzleannie]

I clean mine with polish meant for hardwood floors. that is what I used for our old wood table when kids were small, too. but I was going for the distressed look (or so I told myself) which was a good thing, considering how distressed my furniture was.

 

[CarrieH]

If the table gets heavy use, you might want to put a protective finish on it rather than trying to keep the bare wood clean. I bought my oak table used and it needed to be refinished anyway. So I sanded it down to the bare wood and coated it with an oil-based polyurethane that you can buy at any home improvement store. I put on three coats, and it has held up fine through spills, scrubbings, melted candle wax, and non-declawed cats running all over it. It’s been 10 years since I refinished it, and it still looks great.

 

[Sr_Sally]

I clean mine with polish meant for hardwood floors. that is what I used for our old wood table when kids were small, too. but I was going for the distressed look (or so I told myself) which was a good thing, considering how distressed my furniture was.

This is exactly what I do with mine! I have a very old oak table in our dining room that has received LOTS of wear through the years–it was in my house growing up also–and floor polish just seems to work the best to get it clean and keep it looking as nice as possible.

 

[Brenda_V]

I agree with the protective finish. Other than that try cutting one of those cheap flannel back tablecloths the size of the table so there is nothing to grab onto from the floor and look for those picnic clip things to hold it in place (one of those clips hooks over the top and bottom of the table cloth and holds it in place - this is what I used to do when my girls were little and it seemed to work just fine).

Brenda V.