How to Put a Cup Hook Into the Wall

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Cup hooks don't have to support much weight, so when you need one, it's tempting to just screw it into the drywall. If you do this, it will work its way out before long, taking a small part of the wall with it and dropping your cup on the floor.

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If you have wood paneling, then go ahead and screw the cup hook into that. It will hold. If you have to hang your cup from drywall, you need a trick to make it stay. Here are some simple methods.

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Adapt Plastic Conical Wall Anchors to Hold Coffee Mug Hooks

Even the smallest conical plastic wall anchor you can buy has an opening that's too big for the tiny screw ends of screw-in hooks intended for hanging coffee mugs. You can still use a conical anchor, though, if you add one extra step when installing it — fill it with epoxy filler.

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  1. Purchase the smallest conical screw anchor you can find.

  2. Drill a hole in the drywall that is large enough to insert the tapered end but small enough so that you have to tap the anchor with a hammer to seat it.

  3. Install the anchor so the opening is flush with the drywall and then fill the opening with epoxy wood filler using a putty knife to stuff the filler in as far as it will go.

  4. Wipe off all the excess filler with a rag before it sets. For most products, you have about 20 minutes to do this.

  5. Let the filler set hard and then screw the cup hook into the filler.

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Mount Cup Hooks on Backing Material

A simple solution is to screw the hook into a piece of wood that you can fasten to the wall. This option makes most sense when you want more than one cup hook, but it also works for a single hook.

Screw all the hooks into the wood, spacing them far enough apart to allow cups to hang, and screw the wood to the wall studs using 2 1/2-inch screws. You can cut, sand and stain a piece of pine or oak to make a decorative hanger, or if you want to camouflage the wood, use a piece of 1/8-inch plywood and paint it the wall color.

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Other backing materials can also work. For example, you could stick a piece of self-adhering clear plastic to the wall and drill a hole through the plastic for the cup hook. Once installed tightly, the hook will prevent the plastic from coming unstuck and falling off, and the plastic will keep the hook in place.

Hanging Cups From Ceilings and Other Horizontal Surfaces

Installing mug hooks under the cabinet or shelf usually isn't challenging because the interior of the cabinet is wood, and that will hold anything you screw into it. Just make sure screw threads aren't long enough to penetrate the panel of the cabinet.

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Hanging cups from a drywall ceiling is a little more challenging. You can use the backer method, but an even more secure option is to use hooks that are long enough to penetrate the drywall and sink into a ceiling joist.

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