How to Hang Towel Racks

By eHow Home & Garden Editor

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It's time to move beyond the bachelor (or bachelorette) pad technique of hanging your towels over doorknobs or random nails protruding from the wall. Towel racks go a long way toward giving your bathroom that finished look.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Measuring Tapes
Towel Racks
Hacksaws
Hammers
Levels
Multiuse Screws
Screwdriver Sets
Slotted Screwdrivers
Stud Finders
Variable-speed Drills
Wall Anchors

Step1

Position and mark the brackets of your towel rack high enough that a hung towel won't drag on the ground (or into your toilet).

Step2

Use a carpenter's level to make sure the towel rack will be hung straight, or measure from the ceiling or floor to each end and make sure the distances are the same.

Step3

Look for the screw holes in the rack - most racks require two screws for each side of the rack. If you can't see the screws, it's because they're going through a wall plate hidden under a cover plate; reveal the wall plate by loosening a screw that's usually hidden on the underside of the cover plate.

Step4

Attach the wall plate right to the stud if you can find a wood stud in the wall using a stud finder. If you can't find one, use a sturdy anchor such as a hollow-wall anchor designed to hold things to drywall, available at the eHow store, any hardware store and even most supermarkets.

Step5

Use a hollow-wall anchor to attach a towel rack to your door, as many doors are essentially hollow (or just filled with cardboard) and not very strong. If the door is solid material, you're in luck: Just put those screws right in.

Tips & Warnings

Hollow-wall anchors look like wings with a long screw through them. You close the wings (they're usually held open by a weak spring), and put them through a hole just big enough to fit through. As you tighten the screw, the wings flatten out and tighten up against the inside of the drywall and hold the screw in place.
Drywall anchors, available at your local hardware store, may also work.
Your towel rack rod can almost always be cut to size to fit your particular needs. You'll probably need a hacksaw or other metal-cutting blade to do the job.