Welcome to Teach Me Tuesday! I spend a lot of time each week reading all of the great DIY tips out there in Blogland. Because there are so many fabulous projects that I can’t wait to try, I figured that it would be fun to feature some of my very favorites here each Tuesday.
If you would like to be featured in an upcoming edition of Teach Me Tuesday, please email me at LivingWithLindsay@gmail.com and we’ll chat!
I’m breaking the rules for this week’s edition of Teach Me Tuesday. The featured blogger is not a blogger at all (although he does like to tell me he has a blog called LivingWithLindsaySucks.com, but I think he’s just kidding). Meet Tom, my husband. If you’ve been reading a while, you know he’s a pretty handy guy to have around.
Poor Tom gets stuck in the middle of my projects quite often, and he has been threatening to write a guest blog post about it. In an effort to have him actually hang the hooks I’ve been asking him to hang for a month Because he is always harassing me about using drywall anchors when I am hanging something on the wall, I finally decided to take him up on the offer.
According to Tom, you need to use a drywall anchor because a regular screw will just pull out of the wall once you hang something on it. I trust that he knows what he’s talking about, but drywall anchors always scare me because you have to actually drill a hole in the wall to insert them. He makes it look easy though, and I’m only sorta scared now.
Tom writes:
The first thing to do is to make sure you use the right size and type of anchor. There are a million types of anchors out there, and while I’d happily fill a post on all the finer points of anchor selection, my lovely wife assures me that no one cares.Pictured below are your basic, run-of-the-mill expanding plastic wall anchors. Simple, cheap, and good enough for most things up to around 15 pounds in weight.
It is very important to use the right sized drill bit and screw, and fortunately most anchors are sold with matching screws and drill bits. There are different sizes of anchors, and while they are also usually color-coded for size, there is no standard for the colors…so a “blue” anchor from one company might not be the same size as a “blue” anchor from another one. The bit which comes with anchors is a “masonry” bit, which theoretically can be used to drill into bricks and concrete, but in general, that’s not such a good idea. Anyway, on to the making of holes!
First, figure out where you want to hang the object. (Guys, this means holding something on the wall endlessly while your wife changes her mind.) Mark the wall were the holes will go. I like to use a nail to press a little dimple into the wall.
If you are using a cordless drill, set it to “high” and the clutch to “drill” (if applicable).
And now, for a super-secret “Tom Tip”: for bonus points, you can use tape (ideally blue painters tape) to make a little tray below the spot to be drilled. This helps contain the drywall dust, and if you do it right will catch every speck, eliminating the need for cleanup.
Now it’s time to drill. I like to drill the holes at about a 45 degree angle. A straight hole means if the anchor pulls at all, it will tilt down and come out, while with a 45 degree hole means the weight of the object hanging on the anchor just pulls the anchor deeper into the wall. One drawback to this technique is that it can make starting the hole difficult because the bit will “skip” more easily. You can avoid this by starting the hole straight on, and then switching to 45 degrees. (Advice I unfortunately didn’t follow, which is why one of the holes has a chip next to it… grrr….)
All the dust should collect on the sticky side of the tape in neat piles.
Push the anchors into the wall with your fingers and lightly hammer them in. Use a small tack hammer if you have one, otherwise a regular hammer works fine. It is important to get the anchor in straight and not loosen up the hole while you are driving it in. If you bend the anchor, pull it out and use a new one. They are cheap and messing up a wall over a 3 cent anchor is silly. If you do mess up, you can sometimes just use the next anchor size up, but that’s a last resort. The lip of the anchor should be driven slightly into wall, but not deeply. Leaving a tiny edge hanging out is nice if you every want to try to pull the anchor out to patch the hole. (The other option is to drive it in a little more and spackle over it, but that’s another post…)
Switch your drill to “low” and set the clutch to something low as well. (This means if you grab the front of the drill and pull the trigger it doesn’t turn very hard against your hand before it starts clicking. This only applies to cordless drills! Be very careful testing this if you aren’t familiar with your drill.)
Screw in the screws. You want to drive them until they are just touching the object. Drive all the screws to this point, and then fine-tune the position and tighten the screws down a little more. Do not overtighten them, it is very easy to strip the anchor. Too loose is hard to do, but too tight is all too easy.
Now, color those ugly screws in with a Sharpie and bask in the glory of a job well done!
Thanks for doing this, Tom! You’re the best!
…so our winner is Jodi at Backporch Reflections! Congrats, Jodi!
OMGosh! I cannot thank you enough for these directions. My hubby passed away unexpectedly a few months ago. Two months ago I moved into a small apartment to be near by son and family. I’ve been busy trying to get both the apartment, and a shop I’m opening with a friend, sorted and decorated. I haven’t put anything on my apartment walls yet out of sheer terror I’d mess the walls up. The management here isn’t very tolerant of “excess” holes in the wall.
In the middle of the night, a couple of nights ago, I awoke trying to remember how my husband hung the things on our walls before. I remembered he used these litle peg looking thingys, but didn’t have a clue how to do it myself. I had planned to look it up on the net, but hadn’t had a chance yet to do so, and found your blog this morning. I can’t find my hubby’s drill, so I’ll have to buy both a drill and tack hammer.
Thank you ever so much Lindsay and Tom for helping me with this problem. I’ll let you know how it goes as soon as I get to try your directions.
I do have a question or so. I’m scared silly I’ll drill into an electrical wire or something. How do I find the right place to drill safely?
You mention this works when hanging something up to 15 pounds. What do you use if you need to hang something more than fifteen pounds?
One more question please. Money is tight, so can you recommend a drill that would work for this, that isn’t extremely expensive? Thanks!
Wow, hilarious AND informative. Lindsay, you should let this guy out of the closet more often!!
Great post, I might actually try to do this myself sometime, although I think hubby secretly likes it.
Thanks Tom for such a great post!
I would never have thought of applying blue painters tape to catch the mess…what a great idea! Thanks!
Also I love the idea of the 45 degree angle.
Thanks Lindsay for letting Tom post!
GREAT post!! Anymore I use the drill in anchors instead of these, and I LOVE THEM! They make a bigger hole though, which is not good. How does your hubby suggest getting these anchors OUT when you are done? The screw ins are easy, but I have a nasty time getting these out. Sometimes I’ll just pound them right into the wall. (To the other side.)
congrats to Jodi!!!
-Jill
Paper Prayers
Tom would be horrified by my method of installing drywall anchors…but I’d like to think he’d be proud that I use them at all. ; )
He’s clearly a genius, but we already knew that because he married YOU.
XOXO
PS-Thanks for guesting over at my site while Tom guests here!
Maybe I won’t have to wait on my husband now! Thanks for the simple directions!
I think Tom should post more often (not that I don’t enjoy your posts, Lindsay). Fortunately, I have a pretty handy husband, so he does those for me, but I’m going to have to share the blue tape trick with him. Did Tom come up with that himself?
Thanks for the tutorial! I use anchors all the time, though I usually try to get at least one screw into a stud instead. But I’ve never tried doing them on an angle. I’ll have to try that next time! I never completely trust anchors to not pull out, and maybe this will help.
PS: I never use a drill…I just hammer in the screw I plan to use, pull it out, then hammer in the anchor…yes, I’ve squashed many anchors in the process
I’ll have to start using a drill!
The supersecret tip is great! I always get confused with the settings on my Makita cordless drill(the best Christmas present Mom ever gave me..besides the miter saw).
Great tutorial! I love these kinds of little tips! Thank you!
Love it, Lindsay! I just shared the angle tip with my husband–he’s intrigued!
BTW, it is great to see Zach on your blog–I remember his baby days at GR!
~ Sarah
Ooops, please forgive me for spelling Zack’s name wrong!
~ Sarah
What a great idea with the tape to catch all the mess. I will have to keep that in mind.
Love the name of your hubby’s “blog”.
Thanks for this. I’ve watched my Hubs do it many times, but wasn’t sure I could do it. I might try it now, since I also have a long waiting period between request and action. No matter who does it next, we are definitely going to use blue tape for a dust catcher!
Tom has written an incredibly long response to everyone’s questions. Here it is in it’s entirety:
Awww, shucks, it weren’t nothing Miss…
Just to follow up on a few of the excellent questions:
@Betty Jo
“What do you use if you need to hang something more than fifteen pounds?”
It depends.
Heavier objects tend to be larger, so usually you can find a stud and just put a screw into it and be done. (You don’t use the plastic anchor when you do this, just a screw.) Failing that, there are different types of anchors which hold more. The strongest type is called a “toggle bolt” or “butterfly bolt”. These are great, but leave big hole in the wall and can be a bit tricky to install. Another option is to use more than one anchor spaced a few inches apart. Finally, I’m increasingly becoming a fan of “Monkey Hooks” which claim to hold up to 50 pounds. These things are great, leave a tiny hole, and don’t require tools to install. I’ve seen them for sale everywhere, including Target. (http://monkeyhook.com/)
@Betty Jo:
“I’m scared silly I’ll drill into an electrical wire or something. How do I find the right place to drill safely?”
Very valid concern, and not just for electrical wires. Hitting a water line is even worse than hitting a wire!
Fortunately, you’re very unlikely to have this problem, especially if you know how a wall is laid out inside, and don’t drill too deep.
Almost every wall has “studs” which run floor to ceiling every 16 inches, and most tape measures will even have markings every 16 inches indicating this. Usually in home construction these studs are wooden 2×4′s. (Which are actually 1 1/2 inches wide, and 3 1/2 inches thick for reasons not worth discussing) Electrical outlets and switches are usually attached to the side of a stud. Electrical wires and pipes usually run horizontally from places to place within walls. When they have to go up or down to get somewhere, they are _supposed_ to be attached to the side of the stud right up the middle, and when travelling horizontally, the wires and pipes are run through holes drilled in the stud, and there is _supposed_ to be a metal plate over that part of the stud preventing you from accidentally drilling into it. (The only notable exception is drain pipes, which are 2 to 4 inches in diameter, and don’t follow these rules. These are rare, and usually only found in walls which also have plumbing attached to them. For example, the wall behind a shower or toilet. Be extra care working on any of these so-called “wet walls”.)
Anyway, wires and pipes are usually 1 1/2 inches behind the back of the drywall. Drywall comes in different thicknesses, but it’s safe to assume about 1/2 an inch in most cases, which means that in order to hit a wire or pipe you would have to drill at least 2 inches into the wall. You should never need to drill this deep between studs, because the hole you need for an anchor just goes through the 1/2 inch or so of drywall. Once the drill breaks through the wall, stop.
Drilling between studs is very safe, even if you go too deep any wires are usually going to bounce off the drill bit, and pipes are round and hard to start a hole into. Think about how difficult it would be to drill a hole in the rope holding up a tire swing or a 1/2 diameter pipe… it would be really hard to do unless you hold the rope or wire still.
Drilling into studs is _usually_ safe as well. You’ve got to be pretty unlucky to not hit a metal plate (meaning your house wasn’t built to code) or to somehow hit something else. You are more likely to cut into anything you do hit though, since it will be held still by the stud.
The most dangerous place to drill is right next to a stud. Remember the wires and pipes can run up and down the sides, and they are attached and unprotected by metal plates here. If you are right next to a stud, you should just drill into the stud itself because it is safer and will be a better mounting point to boot.
Great, so how do I know where my studs are?
Heh… this is the part every guy pretends to be good at but really just fakes. First, look for outlets and switches, and remember the studs are usually one one side or the other of them. (But generally avoid these studs since they are more likely to have wires up the sides if you are drilling into them) To figure out where the stud is, there are a few methods, all of which take a little practice.
The classic method is to thump back and forth on the wall with the heel of your hand. You should here a change in the sounds when you are over a stud, and sometimes you can even feel it. This is the way most professionals do it, but it takes a little practice.
The second major method is to use one of those “studfinder” devices. These start at around ~$20 at hardware stores and go up from there. My personal experience with them is mixed at best. They do work, but produce a lot of false positives. One nice thing is that most of them now also have a “live wire” detector built in which squeals when you are over a live electrical wire in the wall. (But, again, in my experience, there are a lot of false positives with this feature)
The third method is pretty foolproof, but frustrating. Take a strong magnet (the rare-earth ones work best) and slide it over the wall until it sticks. It should stick to a screw which holds the drywall to a stud. Mark that spot and move it up until you find another one, and then you should have a nice line indicating exactly where the stud is. When this works, it is fantastic, but finding the screws can take a LONG time. (Usually I use this method in conjunction with thumping)
Finally, when you think you have found a stud, you can take a long, thin nail and carefully drive it into the wall. If you are indeed over a stud, it will drive in solidly. If you’re not, it will punch through pretty quickly. If you punch through, you can either make a guess and try again (at the expense of more holes in the wall) or you can bend a thin piece of wire into a “J” shape, stick it in the hole, and rotate it feeling for the stud. (Obviously the wire trick is better, but it requires having the wire)
@Betty Jo
“One more question please. Money is tight, so can you recommend a drill that would work for this, that isn’t extremely expensive? Thanks!”
At the cheap end of the spectrum, they are all pretty much the same. Not great, not terrible. My only real advice is that if you get a cordless one, look for more than 12 volts, and two batteries. (so you don’t get stuck halfway through a job with no battery)
@Sarah
“How does your hubby suggest getting these anchors OUT when you are done? The screw ins are easy, but I have a nasty time getting these out. Sometimes I’ll just pound them right into the wall. (To the other side.)”
Yup, if I can’t pull them out, I push them in.
HAHAHAHAHA!!! I love the little blue tape catch alls – SUCH a Tom thing!
~ Zoe