apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I know you want something more stable than wood shims, but I used them for years. I'm just fussy enough to have stained them to match my bookcases -- they looked fabulous.

I now use transparent plastic shims from a hardware store. For $3, they've been holding my 5 bookshelves perfectly level for over three years. Can't beat that.

Try theese; I have something of same sort on my Antonius IKEA closet system; works like a clock on a [very] uneven prewar floors.

Yup, we use transparent plastic shims, too. The ones we have are scored to break off once you have them wedged in enough, so that nothing much sticks out.

This may be a more drastic solution, but if the furniture is of a type that would allow it (i.e., has some "hidden" spots near the backs), you may try actually bolting the two pieces of furniture together when properly aligned. I've seen it done before to bookshelves (where the books hid the bolts) to much success.

I'm almost ashamed to admit this, but we screwed our bookshelves right into the wall. Granted, these are IKEA bookshelves and I wouldn't ever dream of doing that to a real piece of furniture, but for us, it works great.

Lizochka - no need for the shame. When I lived in Berkeley I did this with all of my bookshelves in my 70-year-old apartment and it provided leveling as well as earthquake protection. Anything that could fall over and kill us pretty much got bolted to the wall.

"Does anyone have a clever solution for making tall cabinets appear level on such undulating floors?"

You want it to _appear_ level? Get a board of the right width, hold it level (need a level) with clamps near the floor and scribe it to floor, then use a jigsaw to cut to the line. Trim to length, paint black, tack to furniture so that the scribe follows the floor.

Exactly analogous to scribing a board when paneling is installed up against a unstraight wall.

If you want it to be level get two wedges of the right width (used opposite), install, remove, trim to sthat hey fit under the "foot", paint black, reinstall.

Fred is scaring me

Speak for yourself... I'm a little excited.

Wierd, I was just about to post the same question. I'm going with Tat's suggestion.

Thanks!

Fred, can you cme over and do my walls?

i have 2 tall bookcases side by side in a pre war apartment, i used shims and the are stable 3 years and counting .

About those levelers linked by Tat, it sounds obvious, but you you have to careful to put those under the right part of your furniture. Think of your furniture as a house. The levelers have to go directly under the sill of a load-bearing wall, not under the floor. On new furniture these things are tucked behind the legs, so you might think it's ok to do that on older stuff. But they are actually attached to a block that's attached (screwed) to the frame of the furniture. You will have to do the same on older pieces. You don't want to have those things push through the bottom shelf, or loosen it from the frame over time.

I think uneven floors are part of the charm of older buildings.

(The *better* way to earthquake-proof your bookcases is with L-brackets...rather than screwing directly into the wall.)

I had a similar situation, with the shelves so tall that that slanted ceiling came in to play. Putting a couple of rounded objects on top broke up the line and made the misalignment much less conspicuous.

I would like to hear more from Fred...looking up 'scribe' now.

we use those cedar blocks from bb& b that are supposed to be used in your closet. they match our hardwood floors exactly! for just slightly unlevel floors, the flor tile samples make great shims as well.

Install screw-in, adjustable furniture levellers to the bottom of the bookcases. That will actually make them level, as opposed to merely making them seem level; and unless the wood on the bottom of the furniture is very weak, it will be safer than using shims. See http://www.levelingmounts.com/ and http://www.cabinetmart.com/55-2108.html for examples.

I had a similar problem -- a very old house, and a modular wall system from Ikea. I not only screwed the various components to each other before placing them against the wall, I also screwed a furring strip the full length to the wall just below the top of the assembled unit and then bolted the whole works to that furring strip. Be sure to make the furring strip the same thickness as your base molding. And then, to be sure I had the load evenly supported on the floor, I tapped shims in underneath as necessary. You don't really even notice the shims, but staining them to match wouldn't hurt.

It looks great, and it is one piece of furniture I don't have to deal with the wife moving around the room every few months! And, it's not a bad idea to do out here in earthquake country anyway.