Hanging a row of hooks on a wall seems like the simplest, most basic thing to do. I love using rows of hooks all over the place in our house because they’re so handy, they’re cost-effective, and they really can help to organize all kinds of things. We have a row of hooks in our front mudroom, in both kids’ rooms, 2 rows in our back hall leading to the basement, and a triple row in our kitchen entryway area. We recently added another row of hooks to our new back hall mud room area leading out to the back deck and they’re already getting a ton of use for beach bags, beach towels, extra blankets and all that stuff we want to have ready to grab at a moment’s notice at this time of year.
Of course we wanted this row of hooks to be perfectly straight. After spending the better part of a month working on renovating this little area of our home, we didn’t want crooked hooks to come into play and ruin the whole neat, tidy look we were going for. So here’s our little method for making sure our wall hooks are always in a perfectly straight row.
Start out by choosing the general area where you’d like your hooks to go and about how high you’d like them to be off the ground. Place just two tiny marks on the wall at that height and double check to ensure that they’re level with each other.
Place a long strip of painter’s tape across those two marks and check for levelness again. (A little level like this one is perfect for starting out with little projects like this if you don’t have one yet.)
The great thing about having the painter’s tape in place is that you can now feel free to make as many marks on the wall (on the tape) as you need to be sure that you have your measurements and your placement of the hooks just right. If you make a few marks where you think your hooks should go and then realize that they’re not level, you can just make new marks! No one will ever know because those “mistake marks” will never actually show up on your wall!
If you’re like most people, you probably mess up at least one measurement when you’re trying to hang a whole bunch of hooks like this. 🙂
When you’ve found the exact right height for each hook, use the hook itself as a template for marking where you’ll need to drill the holes. Place the hook in the right spot, and mark within the screw holes on the hook with a pen or pencil.
Sometimes it helps to use a pointy object to mark your holes to get them started for drilling.
All that’s left to do at this point is to drill the holes, carefully remove the tape and install those hooks!
And of course, you now have a template to repeat it all on the other side if you have multiple hooked sections like we do. Mark your height, 2 points for level and one for center then re-apply the tape – already measured and marked to match your first section of hooks! 🙂
I hope this little trick is helpful for you the next time you want to hang some hooks on your wall! Sometimes the most difficult part about projects like this is the fear of making a giant mess of the wall because of those tiny mis-measurements that we all inevitably make here and there, so this solves that part of it at least! 🙂
Do you have a spot in your home where you’d love to install a row of hooks?
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.