Rant: My floating shelves fell off the wall after 2 days

I put up three 8-foot pine shelves in my living room last Saturday using those plastic anchor kits from the hardware store. By Monday morning the middle shelf was on the floor with my books scattered everywhere and a chunk of drywall came with it. Should I have used toggle bolts instead or did I just pick the wrong wall location near a stud?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_henry20d ago

... the same thing happened to me with a spice rack last year, except it took out a whole jar of paprika and my favorite coffee mug. Plastic anchors are basically a scam unless you're hanging something lighter than a paperclip... they just crumble into drywall dust. For shelves with books you definitely need toggle bolts or those expanding metal anchors, or better yet find the studs somehow. I ended up buying a cheap stud finder after my incident and now I just screw everything into wood like a paranoid maniac. Your drywall chunk is now part of your floor decor collection... we should start a club.

dakotacraig20d ago

Yep, plastic anchors have let me down more times than I'd like to admit. They're fine for a little picture frame but anything with real weight and they just give up on life. Toggle bolts are the only way to go if you can't hit a stud.

tarajenkins20d ago

Swap to toggle bolts for anything heavier than a picture frame and never look back. I had a big bookshelf come down at 2am once and it sounded like a bomb went off, plastic anchors just gave out after a few months of holding it. Since then I buy the little boxes of toggle bolts at the hardware store and keep a stash in my toolbox, they're cheap and way more reliable. The trick is to pre-drill a hole just big enough to push the folded wings through, then pull them tight and screw it down.