Just settling in to my new apartment here in Paris, and wouldn’t you know it but the walls are either concrete or plaster over brick, all covered with wallpaper. The landlord doesn’t want to see any holes drilled in the walls (he’s touchy about the paper), but I’ve got lots of pictures I want to hang.
I’m thinking of proposing installing some picture moulding to hang pictures off of, but haven’t a clue about the best way to attatch the moulding so it would be strong enough to hold several framed pictures.
Anybody with any advice about how I could solve my problem?
Thanks in advance,
Roger
Close enough for government work
Replies
Roger,
Assuming you win over the landlord to your idea probably the best thing to do for a brick wall would be to drill the picture molding for a screws, strike a level line on the wall to line the molding up with, and mark through the newly drilled hole in the molding, and use a sheild or plastic anchor to fasten the screw into. If it is a plaster wall you could drill and try to hit the lath, or you could use some sort of hollow wall anchor designed to be inserted into the wall, then expanded by tightening the screw inside. Then you take the screw all the way out and then put your molding into place and reinsert the screw.
Either of these two options should be adequate to support pictures provided you have enough anchors evenly spaced. if you use a countersinking bit, depending on the thickness of your molding, you could fill the screw holes with wood plugs. However this would make the molding difficult to remove in the future. As you would not have access to the screw heads.
Chris
Roger - if it's plaster over brick (likely) try OOK Picture Hangers with special hardened nails. They would do far less damage than adding picture molding, and go fine into cementitious plaster (which I have).
T. Jeffery Clarke
Edited 4/29/2002 4:08:38 PM ET by Jeff Clarke
Thanks, I'll see if OOK will ship to Europe. If not, I will try to find a local supplier or go back to the picture moulding idea.
Cheers,
RogerClose enough for government work
This idea might not appeal to you but another option might be to build floor standing frames which would simply lean against the wall. It would only have to be a couple of vertical members joined with a couple of cross members. If you wanted to get fancy, you could integrate low voltage lighting in the frame design to highlight your artwork. If you wanted to do 'an artwork wall', you could build a system of these frames to encompass as much area as you needed. Of course if the landlord goes with the picture rail idea, that would be best but this might be a potential solution if approached with taste and a bit of design savvy. Good luck.