And I don’t permit him to touch my hardware, because he mislays it. He’s got some congenital problem with putting things back where he found them. And because the workers who did our last remodel had sticky fingers, my tools are all emblazened with my name on the handle in permanent marker. All tools are my tools, and he basically has to borrow them.

The trick with the studs (the ones in the walls, not the kind whom you can hire to come over and do handywork) is to know what your interval is. The inside of the walls are put together at a regular interval: old houses it might be 12 or 14 inches; newer ones it tends to be 16 to 18. Once you use the stud finder to locate a stud, locate another one. That gap should be pretty universal in your house. You might want to do this a few times, because every 4th stud or so is a triple to bear load: that will change the interval in that spot by a couple of inches! So checking in a couple of spots will yield the most accurate measurement.

Now: once you have a nail in a stud somewhere in a room, you can pretty much get another one by using just a tape measure. Or, like me, you could buy three stud finders and hide at least one so that your husband can’t misplace it.

There are, otherwise, drywall anchors that will hold a nail in place. Ask at the hardware store. You can only put so much weight on them, but they work without a stud. Indeed, good luck getting one of them into a stud! I find that the best way to reliably locate a stud, in fact, is to try and insert a drywall anchor into any given wall. But I digress.

The hammer in that picture is cute!

Wow, that’s a big nail. I’d hide them on you too I think. I loved ““what for are you be do?” Methinks you were busted!

Gotta love an antique farm house

I just steal dh’s tools…. when he doesn’t lose them on the farm… maybe I should finally get my own set.

Sheri

Last weekend, I finally got around to actually hanging things on the walls in the kids’ rooms — the ones they’ve been living in for three years now…

Well, it is very pretty, but I don’t see why women can’t use plain old black hammers.

That said, hanging things on drywalled walls is an exercise in frustration, even when you do find the studs.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I’m not quite sure why we found the need to relegate plaster to the realm of obsolesence.