apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

This is the second post about this lousy table - You fix it by spending $50 more for the CB2 Odyssey table with a sturdy metal base.

http://www.cb2.com/family.aspx?c=202&f=1963

Perhaps tape one of those thin match boxes they give away at restaurant, which will help level it from underneath and prevent the wobbles.

At most hardware stores you can buy plastic shims that snap off at different lengths to help level things out. Great thing about these shims is that they come in white to minimize any sort of disconnect between the table and the floor.

Yeah, it might be Ikea's fault, but the thing about SF is that most of us don't have perfectly level floors--especially if you live in an older building.

shims!

My friend who enjoys exploring ethical gray areas says the following: buy a new one and make sure it doesn't wobble before you put it in your car. Then return your wobbly one to Ikea with the receipt and get a refund.

Or - fix the base. It can't be that difficult... simply shim the edge that is too high off the floor.

Good luck!

lightspeed, I like that way your friend thinks.

Point of clarification - is the source of your wobble the base or the table top? Mine doesn't wobble at the base, but the connection between the stem and the table top is too narrow - the top will wobble when I lean elbows or use the cutting board on the table.

I have a docsta table, and it wobbles at the table top, not the base. It doesn't wobble a lot...just a little to be annoying.

I have this table--I've never noticed any wobbling.

Wobbly table in a restaurant is annoying. Wobbly table at home you should return it.

Had the same problem with mine, the center weight seemed to be a little off on the inside. I disassembled it and used my power tools to make sure all the screws were tight at the base and now it's stable.

Yup! Me too!

I just added an update from S. about the wobble...

Yes! I have this table, and I've asked this same question a couple of times on this site. The tabletop shakes; the base doesn't wobble. My civil engineer boyfriend explained to me that the shaking is inherent in the design - a smaller pedestal supporting a larger tabletop. As much as I like this table, the shaking bothers me enough that I'm considering selling it. I tested the store displays; they didn't seem to shake as much, but then I didn't sit down and eat at them.

I wonder if the original Saarinen tulip table shakes...

Unfortunately, you can't return furniture that you've already assembled back to Ikea.

Gorgeous chairs! Can't help thinking how lovely they would look with a Saarinen table....

...ah yes, I too would swear it is someone's home!

yep, my tabletop wobbles too! fortunately, i only use it as an entry way display table. very annoying, nonetheless!

We have this table and it doesn't wobble.

I've wondered about this because the floor model at Ikea seemed a bit unstable (woobbly). I was afraid it could tip over if someone leaned on the edge. For those who don't have a wobbly one, does it have a tendency to tip over if someone leans on thr edge?

i think the reason that it wobbles is because it is a clumsy rip-off of a classic design that is made from cheap materials and engineered to be disposable.

i know not everyone can spend 1500 plus dollars on a dining table, but some of these ikea items are so poorly made that i can't imagine not having to replace them within a year.

my new philosophy is to buy classic quality pieces, and if i get tired of it then it will have held enough value for me to sell it and get back much if not all of what i paid for it, then put that money towards the next quality, classic design.

Though I don't know how this table is assembled, I wonder if some sort of compressible washer (or a hand-cut disc of thin foam) placed between the table-top and the base could tighten things up and keep it from wobbling....

I have an original tulip table, and it doesn't shake (in response to the comment above). I don't know how your table top connects to the base; perhaps that's the problem? Seems like you could put a thin bead of sealant and retighten the screws to fix the problem.

Not everyone can afford a $1500 table. Not now, not ever. even with scrimping and saving. This is why Ikea exists, get over it.

i know not everyone can spend 1500 on a table. that's why i said it in my post.

i guess you could buy one of these every year for 10 years and spend the same money. or you could do a little work and look for a nice used one. or if you don't wanna drop the money on a knoll, you could look for a vintage burke table that wouldn't sell for all that much more than this awful ikea version.

As a carless person living in NYC using only public transportation finding a vintage burke or saarinen for a "steal" is next to impossible. I'm not raging at you specifically, eightdouble, just at people in general who assume that finding cheap vintage peices is easy as pie. I get really tired of looking at "EAMES ERA MID CENTURY MODERN" coffee tables for $600 (Lane - not anything designer). its a tad depressing :P

Mine wobbles too- and until I read this I thought it was the base, but I checked and it IS the top!

And I thought about getting the CB2 one, but I didn't like that the base of it isn't curved. It's just a straight tube.

I like the look of this table with real chairs. I'm so sick of real tables surrounded by plastic chairs and it looks fresh to see it in reverse. I realize that's not the point here but I felt compelled to point it out. I'm also tired of mismatched chairs and graphic posters with clever sayings but that's completely off topic.

Lordy, lordy some people are furniture snobs. Try to help and not use it as an excuse to bash. JMHO.

suzie. i understand. i live in the city in chicago and have no car and am always trying to figure out how to get things from point a to b.

it has taken me well over a year to find the perfect dining table. which i finally did. (for the record: vintage george nelson by herman miller x base table in white on chrome legs)... i got this table for what i consider to be a steal. i also think that buying vintage goes along with my leftist, vegan , eco stance as opposed to buying furniture made out of sawdust and glue and shipped from who knows where?

there are still deals to be had even in the ebay era. it just takes some work and patience. part of the beauty of a well designed space (to me) is the stories and memories about how these pieces were acquired. and i'm not anti-ikea at all... i'm just anti- some of their lower quality pieces that come off as cheap knock-offs. but i'm totaly off topic, i hope you guys get the wobble un-wobbled.

The table wobbles because the base is made of flexible plastic - not something solid like metal or wood...

...so shims, etc won't do alot of good - It's just a cheap, crappy table destined for the landfill.

I noticed the slight wobble from the top of mine the other day as well. Unlike a lot of Ikea furniture, it screws into metal nuts in the top, so it's safe to take apart and put back together. I'll tinker with it later this week and see if I can offer any solutions.

I paid $30 for mine in the as-is section, so in the end, I can deal with a little wobble.

Pteetsa said:
"Unfortunately, you can't return furniture that you've already assembled back to Ikea."

Did you ask them? We returned a mounted Kitchen sink and a half assembled chest of drawers. But perhaps we have other terms and conditions in Germany.

I would give it a try.

In any event, I like the photograph. The table looks nice with those chairs.

I did what tkelley did--took the top off, reassembled while making sure that all the screws were tightened equally, and that fixed the wobbling. ...And I just have to roll my eyes at the furniture snobs that always need to put in their (non-constructive) 2 cents about IKEA stuff. The Docksta looks way better than the CB2 table, and with all the money saved, I got to surround my super-cheap Docksta with 4 ebony Eames DCM chairs. I'll take expensive (and comfortable) chairs over an expensive dining table any day!

Why don't you load the Docksta in a car or truck, take it back to Ikea, show them how it wobbles, and make them reassemble it.
That's what I did. They brought out their power tools and reassembled it at no extra cost.(probably because I was so pissed off). Now I have a table that doesn't wobble. It's worth a try!

It's amuzing how many posts are generated over one wobbly table.

*amusing*

what amazes me is how people love to bash ikea, and never take any responsibility over the fact, that perhaps they just didn't assemble it properly from the begining. hence why some wobble and others don't. tintin here is a prime example.


do all of you also realize that you need to tighten assembled products over time? this goes for anything from any manufacturer where you assemble your self.

wake up people! focus, be patient, and get a good set of tools! and use some elbow grease damn it!

Gee blkbrrry! Thanks for the speech! I'm going to run out right now and buy a "good set of tools"
I can see the light! Hooray!
Maybe I didn't assemble it properly, but at least I offered some sort of solution as opposed to using the comment section as a soapbox to make speeches about elbow grease.