5 Furniture Problems You Can Fix Yourself

Loose Rungs on Your Chairs

After years of being pushed and pulled to and from the dinner table, chairs can suffer from their wooden joints coming loose. The first casualties are often rungs popping out of the legs. "This happens even more frequently with new furniture that's not constructed as solidly as older furniture," Dvorak says.

Those loose rungs need to be reglued. First, remove the old glue. "Sand the end of the rung clean, down to the wood," Dvorak says. "Then use a syringe to insert wood glue into the opening in the leg. A syringe lets you get the glue right where it's needed without having to completely remove the rung." Then insert the rung and clamp the chair tight until the glue is dry. "Keep in mind that not all wood glues perform the same," she says. "I've tried almost every wood glue out there, and I use Titebond III. I buy it by the gallon."

Wobbly Chairs

Few things are more unnerving than sitting on a wobbly chair. If gluing loose rungs and tightening the hardware doesn't work, then add right-angle corner braces. You can buy the braces at hardware and home improvement stores for just a couple bucks for a four pack. Make sure to buy the paintable kind if you want to paint the braces to match the chair.

"Add a brace where each leg meets the seat. You may have to bend the brace a little so it's flush against the chair leg—you don't want a gap between the brace and the leg," she says. "Be sure to drill pilot holes before inserting the screws through the brace. That'll keep the wood from splitting."

Pieces Coming Apart at the Seams

If furniture starts to separate at the seams where two pieces of wood come together, a simple solution is to add flat corner braces, which are available at hardware and home centers for less than $1 each. This eliminates having to drive screws through the seam in the hopes of pulling the gap closed. Add the brace in an inconspicuous location, like the back of the piece. "Place the bracket over the joint where the wood is the thickest so you get the most bite with your screws," Dvorak advises. "Use clamps to pull the seam tight, then drill pilot holes through the bracket, drive in your screws, and you're done."

Loose Legs

"When people drag furniture instead of picking it up to move it, they put a lot of pressure on the leg and can cause it to come off," Dvorak says. Some people compound the problem by trying to drive several screws through the furniture into the leg to secure it. That causes more problems by splitting the wood.

Instead, Dvorak sands the part of the leg that faces the furniture to allow the glue to form a stronger bond. Then she applies wood glue and clamps the leg firmly in place. "You also have to use fasteners. You have to pre-drill to keep the wood from splitting, then drive two screws that give you at least two inches of bite into the leg." Countersink the screws, fill the holes with wood filler, sand the area smooth, and apply a finish.

Broken Drawer Corners

Dresser drawers are usually made of thin, flimsy pieces of lumber, and the dovetail corners are notorious for coming apart. "I get a lot of dressers where people tried to pin the corners with brad nails," Dvorak says. "That doesn't work. The wood is too thin to nail, and pinning it cracks or breaks the wood, making it even harder for the joints to go together. Plus the nails usually end up coming through the wood at an angle and are then poking into your drawer."

The best fix starts with removing any nails from the corners. Then gently take the corner the rest of the way apart and sand away any remaining old glue. Apply wood glue, reassemble the corner and clamp the drawer until the glue dries. "If the drawer is sticking, apply beeswax along the bottom rail to help it glide," she says.