Putting up closet hooks
An unspectacular start to our blog…
I was putting up a couple of hooks in the closet today. Because I did not expect to have the luxury of having studs where I wanted to put them up, I bought some anchors to go with them.
Before I tried to put up the first hook, I tapped on the wall to check if I did indeed have a stud there, and it seemed that there wasn’t. So I happily drill a couple of holes with a 3/16″ quite some ways into the wall, and I try to push the anchors in, but they just would not. So I try to hammer them in, only to have them bend and distort into something unusable, they being merely plastic after all. So then I try put in the screws directly, hoping that the screws would push them in. That does not work either, and the anchors open up before they are in.
Finally, I poke inside the holes (literally) and figure out that there is infact (part of?) a stud behind where I was trying to put in the hook. So I just go ahead and put in the screws directly into the wall slightly away from the holes so that they get covered up by the hook. For the other hook, I tried drilling a small pilot hole first, and after an initial resitance, the drill went through easily, telling me that there wasn’t a stud there, so I could anchor away to my heart’s content, which is what I did.
So the lesson is: if you are not sure if there is a stud where you want to put in a screw in a drywall, first drill a small pilot hole. If the drill bit goes through easily after an initial resitance, then there isn’t a stud, and you should drill a larger hole and put in an anchor. Otherwise, just go ahead and put in the screw.
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