My kitchen table has wobbled for three years. Every meal, someone would lean on it and everyone’s water would slosh. I folded napkins under the short leg. I shoved matchbooks under it. Nothing lasted more than a day.

The fix cost me nothing and took five minutes. I used a wine cork.

Why a cork works

Cork is compressible but durable. It grips the floor without scratching it. It won’t slide around like folded paper. It won’t compress flat like cardboard. And it’s free — every bottle of wine comes with table-leveling hardware.

The gap under most wobbly table legs is about the thickness of one to three slices of cork. You’re not building a tower. You’re filling a tiny gap.

How to do it

1. Identify which leg is short. Press down on each corner of the table. The one that moves is your target.
2. Cut a thin slice off the cork with a sharp knife. Aim for about an eighth of an inch — about the thickness of two pennies stacked.
3. Test-fit it under the leg. Still wobbles? Cut a slightly thicker slice. Too tall? Trim it down.
4. Once the thickness is right, glue the cork slice to the bottom of the leg with super glue or wood glue. Wood glue is better for permanent fixes.
5. Let it dry. Table fixed.

Other materials that work

• Felt furniture pads: The stick-on kind. Stack two or three for the right height. Bonus: they slide smoothly on hard floors.
• Rubber faucet washers: Hardware store, pennies each. Various thicknesses. Grippy, won’t slide.
• Leather scraps: Cut from an old belt. Same principle as cork but won’t compress over time.
• Hot glue blob: Quick fix, not permanent. Shape it, let it harden, trim excess with a knife.

When the floor is the problem

Sometimes the table is fine and your floor isn’t level. Old houses, tile floors — they’re rarely perfectly flat. In that case, use adjustable screw-in feet if your table legs can accept them. Most furniture with wooden legs can — there’s often a pre-drilled hole with a metal insert that just needs a leveling foot threaded in.

Hardware stores sell leveling feet in packs of four for about $5. Better than a wine cork for a permanent fix, but the cork works until you get to the store.