How To Install Broom Holder

DIY – How to install a grook utility holder with the right hardware

By A Jones For Organizing In General organizing

Desire to hear virtually i of my favorite organization products? It'south the Grook Utility Holder by Casabella. The name Grook comes from a portmanteau of "grip" and "hook." (How oft do y'all become to utilize the discussion portmanteau? Not frequently, and I'm so happy that I got the chance.)

Grook utility holder containerstore

Grook Utility Holder

prototype courtesy of containerstore.com

You tin buy the Grook utility holder at Amazon.com, the Container Shop, and some dwelling house improvement stores. I like to apply the Grook hook for storing umbrellas, cleaning tools, and m tools. It'southward especially proficient for long-handled items similar brooms and mops and shovels and rakes, because every bit the name suggests, it grips them in identify. You really take to use some force to pull the handles out, which is why I'll talk about hardware and give you some cool tool tips, further downwardly.

A Jones For Organizing - Grook holder, removing broom handle

See the picture below, where that push broom handle isn't falling downward through the holder? I LOVE it when things stay put, after I put them back in their home when I'yard finished with them.

A Jones For Organizing grook hook in garage

I use it a lot for storing umbrellas. If the umbrella has a strap you lot can merely hang information technology on a hook forth the front of the Grook. If it doesn't, you may be able to push the umbrella handle in betwixt the pressure clamps, every bit shown below.

A Jones For Organizing grook hook with umbrellas (3)

Since it grips handles so tightly, you can alternate broom and mop heads to fit more of them in the space. Below, I installed two long Grook holders side by side.

A Jones For Organizing grook with brooms and mops 1

The Problem

Here's the trouble, though, and the reason for this article. Since the Grook utility holder grips handles and then tightly, it takes extra pulling effort to think that broom handle. And that tugging and pulling is going to eventually pull your hardware out of the wall and you will be very sorry.

Spoiler alarm for those who just need to know the solution: I recommend using 3/xvi″ ten iii″ long toggle bolts instead of the drywall anchors that come with the production, to prevent the Grook from getting pulled out of the wall.

A Jones for Organizing drywall anchors and toggle bolts

I'll testify you why and how, if y'all want to stay with me.

Gravity Is Ane Thing, But Your Arm Force Is Something Else Entirely

If y'all remember about it, most wall-mounted hooks accept just one simple job. They have to keep things from falling downwards on the floor, because, you know, gravity.

coat hook from houzz.com

image courtesy of houzz.com

Gravity is a particularly stubborn forcefulness that never takes a vacation, and never changes its heed about which direction to pull. So it'south always important, when installing any kind of wall-mounted hooks, to employ good sturdy hardware to go along those hooks in place while the items on the claw are constantly being tugged downwards.

Equally Adam Savage of MythBusters says, "Gravity. Information technology'southward not only a skillful idea. It's the law!"

But with the Grook, gravity is not the primary force to bargain with. The Grook holds things tightly with pressure clamps. So, unlike other wall-mounted hooks where the pulling force is gravitational downward to the ground, the pulling force on the Grook is outward, away from the wall, as you tug on it. Come across how much forcefulness is needed to remove the broom handle?

A Jones For Organizing - Grook holder, removing broom handle

Regular wall anchors simply will non hold up to this much perpendicular force. To keep the Grook securely fastened in hollow drywall like it is here while it'south being pulled away from the wall, you have to use toggle bolts. (By the way in case you're wondering, drywall is also chosen sheetrock, you say potayto, I say potahto.)

Only, Shouldn't I Install It In A Forest Stud?

Yes. Aye, in an ideal world, you lot would practice this. You would find a spot with wood studs behind the wall, and screw the Grook hook straight into those studs. If you find a location for your Grook holder that has wood studs behind it, you're gilt. Level information technology, marker your holes, drill some pilot holes, spiral information technology in, and you're done. (Or alternatively, get-go find a i″ thick forest strip, spiral that wood piece into the studs, and and so attach the Grook to that.) If that happens, you don't demand the rest of this article.

Where's A Stud When Yous Need One?

But having studs in the wall right where you want your Grook to be just isn't possible, most of the time. I accept installed numerous Grook holders in my clients' homes over the years. In my feel, the perfect spot for them is well-nigh never where in that location are woods studs backside the drywall.

As an example, see my brusque piddling Grook here, on this narrow wall? That is a perfect spot for information technology, right? Just the studs are in the corners and by the door trim, non in the middle, where I desire my Grook to become. This is simply the reality of standard building practices. And then, you're going to need the right hardware to install it over hollow drywall.

A Jones For Organizing grook short hook on narrow wall

Use Toggle Bolts

Therefore, I finally (!) arrive at my point: To install the Grook securely into hollow drywall, use toggle bolts. While you're at the hardware store, ask them to find you a few other useful tools.

Suggested Tools:

an awl (pronounced "hey ya'll!") or an ice choice, otherwise known as a sharp pointy thing, for marking holes
a longer than usual commuter chip for your drill (drills come with regular shorter commuter bits)
3/sixteen″ x three″ long toggle bolts (you have to get skinny ones, iii/16″ thick or like, because thicker bolts won't fit through the Grook holes)

A Jones For Organizing grook suggested tools

Why use an awl, y'all?

Considering it's so much easier and more effective to push an awl through the holes and punch a pocket-sized pigsty in the wall where your screws will go. Meet here where the awl hands goes through the holes? The screw holes in the Grook get narrow toward the back, so that pencil just barely goes through that little hole, and you lot can't wiggle it effectually to mark the spot.

A Jones For Organizing grook with pencil vs awl

After years of installing all kinds of shelves and hooks and whatnot, trying to marking my holes with pens and pencils, I finally realized that pushing in a sharp pointy awl to mark a spot on drywall was the much more brilliant and efficient way to get.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Learn from the mistakes of others. You tin't alive long plenty to make them all yourself."

Did Someone Say Wine?

I also take a Pro Tool Tip for you. Afterwards you become out and purchase an awl for your very own, or discover an ice pick in a drawer somewhere, drink some wine to celebrate (not while using power tools, though) and salve the cork. Stick the stop of the awl or ice pick in the cork to store it safely, so no one gets hurt from the sharp pointy end when rummaging around in your tool bag or drawer.

awl in wine cork

Why do I need a longer driver flake for the drill?

Considering the way this thing is designed, there is plastic molding in the way, nearly the holes, that will preclude your regular-length driver bit from going all the fashion in. See beneath how the drill bumps up against the plastic molding?

grook hook with short driver bit

Here beneath, yous can see that the longer commuter flake keeps the drill abroad from the plastic molding, so it isn't obstructed while you're tightening the toggle bolts.

grook hook with long driver bit

You Have To Pull On The Grook While Tightening The Toggle Bolts

While tightening the toggle bolts, yous volition need to hold and continually pull the Grook away from the wall toward y'all, as you tighten each pigsty a fiddling chip at a time. If you tighten one bolt all the mode and get to tighten the others, the toggles on the other bolts will spin uselessly behind the drywall and never get tightened. Y'all have to pull on them all at the same time, past pulling the Grook toward you, to become the toggle bolts to grab the drywall behind the wall. This part of the installation has to go slow, simply you'll be so happy when it's washed. So play some mellow music and go slowly, pulling on the Grook and tightening a footling bit on each bolt at a time, around all iv bolts. Yeah, toggle bolts get in a fleck of fussy work to install this thing.

Why do you dearest this claw/holder if it takes so much special equipment and extra work?

Yeah, it'south more complicated to install than other kinds of hooks and mop/broom holders. Merely I think the extra attempt is worth information technology. The Grook Utility Holder is a terrific, sturdy, multi-purpose holder that will serve you lot well and last forever once you install information technology deeply in either wood studs, or into hollow drywall with toggle bolts.

Want more than tool tips? Ask me well-nigh my Real Women Use Tools course!