Hang up your towel, not your hat

This post comes about as a question that a classmate of mine had for me. At her residence a towel rack had gotten pulled out of the wall. This is a fairly common problem that has happened to me more than a time or two. It really happens fairly easily, especially depending on when it was put up and what condition the wall material is in.

There are several ways that I have gone about putting these up and back on the wall, one more frustrating than the other, and also dependent on how the wall is when it was torn out.

The first way is good if, since the towel rack is already down, you want to go ahead and move it all together. What you'll need is some sort of straight edge that is longer than the towel rack itself, a level (there are apps out the now for smartphones that will use the phone as a level), a screwdriver, a tape measure and these. I prefer to use the screw-in anchors due to their simplicity. However if you have to take them out, they leave a fairly noticeable hole. You can you use smaller anchors, but to get those in you will need a drill with a bit about half the size of the anchor and a hammer to tap it in, so just a couple extra steps.

So bear with me, this part gets pretty detail oriented.

Find where you want to put the rack. Look at what you have, on the back of the part that hold the rod, there should be a little plate

that holds the screws that go into the wall. It comes off by loosening a screw around the outside ring, either with an allen wrench or small screwdriver.

You'll want to measure the distance between the center of the plate to the center of the other.

Once you have that number take your straight edge and level, and keeping a straight line horizontally make a line longer than you think the distance is, preferably by a lot. Along the line mark the correct distance between the two centers of the brackets. At those marks, again take the straight edge and level and make a vertical line. From there you can hold up the plates to the lines, and center them on each line and mark where the screw holes are. And BAM! The hard work is over. If you went with the smaller anchors take the drill bit and drill into the marks, hammer the anchors in and then screw on the plate, put up the bar and make sure the little screw that hols the plate on is tight.

NOTE- Look at how the plates go back into the holders, if they are vertical then make the plates vertical, and if it is horizontal, put the plate  on the wall horizontal. I feel like that was self explanatory but, has to be said.

If you have the screw in anchors, do the same thing but with less steps.

And also don't forget to fill in the holes where the rack use to be with some spackle and matching paint.

The second way is by far the easiest. You simply take where the towel rack once was and put it back there.

Start by taking the plates of the back of the holders for the bar. Where the holes in the wall are you most likely want to use the screw-in anchors since the holes where the screws got pulled out are probably larger.

And once you screw those anchors in the wall you should be good to go. Just put the plate back up and then remount it.

A good practice is to do this on both ends of the towel rack. Even though it may not be out of the wall, it still may just be barely holding on. That way you don't have to repeat this process in a couple months