Sometimes, your plaster wall might not seem to carry the weight of your wall shelf. Luckily, how to hang a heavy shelf on a plaster wall is relatively easy if you have the necessary tool that your plaster wall can use to support the weight of the heavy shelves you plan on hanging.
Your worries about trying to hang your heavy shelves are quite understandable. It is annoying to hang a wall shelf and then have it crashing down and probably having all the contents on the shelf shatter if they are fragile and made of glass. You’ll probably be spending money trying to replace them.
Finding a Location on Your Wall for the Shelf
The first thing you need to do is to find a suitable location for your shelf. It would help if you had a more massive expanse of the wall to hang the wall shelf. If the space on the wall is small, your wall shelf is most likely to fall. The plaster wall also is supposed to be broad and large enough to hold the wall studs.
When you have selected a suitable location for your shelf, the next thing to do will be to find the wall studs. You can use a stud finder for this purpose, and when you have located the vertical studs in the wall, Mark the location as that is where you will be hanging your shelf.
After locating your wall studs, you should then find out the height of your first shelf or the first shelf you will be hanging. Finding the length of the wall shelf will help you divide where the wall bracket will be located.
The fourth step involves placing the wall bracket over the studs that you have located on your wall. It would help if you marked where the bracket holes will be drilled in the wall as well.
When you have marked the location where the bracket hole will be drilled, you can then bore in the bracket holes. When you are boring the bracket hole into the wall and notice that it goes into a wall stud, you will only need a small hole, but if you see the hole goes into your wall, you might need to drill a bigger hole.
When you have drilled the brackets’ hole s, you can then go in and screw in your brackets. Depending on your hole’s size and whether it touched a said or went through the wall, you might need to use screws or bolts. If the bracket hole touched the stud, you need to screw in the brackets using wooden screws, but you will need to use bolts if the bracket hole went into the wall. Examples of bolts that can be used are toggle bolts. Ensure that you do not over tighten your bolts.
When your brackets have been screwed in or mounted, you can then go ahead and place your shelf on it. You can repeat all the steps explained here, depending on how many shelves you want to hang on your wall.
Getting a Movable Shelf
If you are sure that your wall is not strong enough to handle a shelf’s weight, you might need to get a movable shelf that you can assemble and disassemble easily. It will prevent a wall shelf from crashing down on your floor prematurely.
A movable shelf also had the advantage of being dismantled easily. The benefit often shows itself when you are probably moving across a city, and you only need to move with a few things that you might own. Shelves are not that cheap, and a movable shelf might be advantageous in that aspect.
Quality Shelves
Ensure that you are using quality shelves for your walls. You don’t want to ruin your walls with mounting cheap shelves without quality because you have to take them out quite often, and this will only leave holes in your wall.
Quality Bolts and Screws
You should also make sure that the screws or bolts that you are using are sturdy and are made of excellent quality so that your bracket will be mounted and secured correctly on the wall studs. Ensure that the screws or bolts are also not overtightened.
Conclusion
If you don’t know how to hang w heavy shelf on a plaster wall, you might need to hire someone who is a professional to help you out.
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