Small bathroom makeovers are a great way to upgrade your home and save a bit of money
by doing it yourself. So in today’s video, I’m going to give you some quick tips on
how to install towel bars so that they never pull out of the wall again, and they’re
super solid for years and years and years. So we’re going to show you how to install
these ones here. They’re pretty awesome. They’re by American Standard. They’re
called the Green Tea Towel Bars. We’ll show you the installation, and I’ll give you
those tips right now. Here’s my number one tip for you when it
comes to mounting towel bars and toilet paper holders to drywall or plaster: Find a stud.
Or if you have the wall open, add wood blocking in the stud wall where you want the towel
bar or the toilet paper holder to go. So one of the best places to start on a wall
where you’re going to put your towel bar, if you have a GFCI, is to start right there.
So in a bathroom, you should have a GFCI on the wall. And most likely, the electrical
box is going to be mounted to a stud. Take your stud finder, place it on the wall, and
sure enough right here is where the stud is located. So we’re going to start here, and
we’re going to work our way over and try to find the next one.
Now here’s the deal with this old bathroom. This wall is so wonky that the studs are not
facing like they typically would in a new home. So the stud is a 2” x 4”, but really
it’s 3 ½” x 1 ½”. And the 1 ½” part of that stud is facing you. But in this
wall, the studs are flipped, and the 3 ½” portion of the stud is actually facing outward.
So these are 18” towel bars, and that kind of is a good thing for your towels, but it’s
not a great thing for stud walls because if I place this on the wall on a stud, it’s
going to be on one stud and then it’s going to span over the 16” and be in a dead space
or just drywall. But in this case, I’m lucky because this wonky wall actually helped me
out. So I’m going to place the center of the right side of the towel bar on the stud,
and then we’re going to find the other stud over here, and we’re going to place the
towel bar there. So both sides of this towel bar are going to be anchored in a stud or
on wood, and that’s a great thing. Once you find your stud, the next thing you
should do is grab a level. This is just a 2’ level. This is by Empire. And the nice
thing is, what you can do is just line it up where you want the right-hand side in this
case of that towel bar to be, and make sure that your level is absolutely level, and then
place a mark where the next stud is located. So now you have a reference line to make sure
that that towel bar is absolutely level. Because you don’t want the towel bar to be sloped
like this. It just isn’t going to look good. So definitely just go out and buy yourself
a 2’ level and do this. By the way if you’re wondering, I’m placing
this towel bar at 43” up off the finish floor. It’s a comfortable height. And the
reason why I have to do that is so that we can be a few inches below the wall plate for
the GFCI here. These are the towel bars that I’m mounting.
They’re made by American Standard. They’re called the Green Tea Towel Bars. But nonetheless,
they come with these mounting brackets that are embedded via a set screw. So you just
take an Allen Wrench, you loosen the set screw, and you pull the mounting bracket out from
the towel bar. So these are pretty great because they have four different screw holes in them.
So what I’m going to actually do is center this using the top screw hole.
This mark on the wall here represents where this bracket needs to go. It also represents
where the stud is located. I’m going to use 1 ½” wood screws because we’re going
to placing this right into a wood stud. The only thing that’s a little bit tricky with
this particular bracket is the shape. So we definitely want to make sure that it’s nice
and level before we mount it into the wall with the other screw.
In this particular instance, I’m placing my tape measure on the center hole here in
the center of the bracket, and measuring over 18”. This will give me the center of the
next bracket. I also measured 43” up off the floor. Now that only works if your floor
is absolutely level. So make sure you double check this mark with a level. And there you
go. It actually is pretty level. That’s good. So what we’re going to do is place
another screw in the top hole of this mounting bracket.
At this point, it’s a good idea to dry fit your towel bar on the brackets. Looks good.
So the next step is to just add in this case two more screws to each bracket. Okay, then
you just slide the towel bar onto the brackets and then tighten them using the Allen Wrench.
Now because this is a small bathroom makeover, I had to stack the second towel bar above
the first towel bar primarily because I wanted this to be on a stud, but also we just kind
of ran out of space on this wall here. Now the top of the second towel bar is in line
with the wall plate for the GFCI. I did that on purpose because I just thought it would
look better. All right, so now it’s time to install the
toilet paper holder. One of the biggest tips that I have for you, and I mentioned this
at the beginning, is to put a 2” x 6” or a 2” x 8” or a 2” x 10” in the
wall if you are redoing the drywall in the bathroom so that that toilet paper holder
has something to anchor into. Obviously it’s being used a lot, most likely, and it’s
going to take some wear and tear. And so it will become loose over time if it’s just
anchored into the plaster or the drywall. And I totally understand if you can’t put
2” x material on the wall, but that is the best practice if you’re redoing the redoing
the entire bathroom. If you didn’t put any 2” x material in
the wall, you can always just again double check where that stud is. And there’s one
right here. So technically what I could do is just put the toilet paper holder right
here centered on this stud. But I know that if I come up here, I have a big piece of 2”
x 10” in the wall. So I can actually mount the toilet paper holder right here, and I
should be good to go. That’s a comfortable location for this toilet.
Now when it comes to toilet paper holders, I like the type whereby you can just slide
the toilet paper on it. So for example, just like that. You’re good to go. And the reason
why is, for whatever reason—I don’t know why—people find it hard to put the toilet
paper holder together. So just having something like this that’s quick and easy…
So again, this is the Green Tea Toilet Paper Holder by American Standard, and it’s pretty
nice because it matches the towel bars over there. So always try to match your towel bars
with your toilet paper holder. Now that I think about it, I probably am going
to mount this right off the stud because if I put it right here, somebody can bump right
into it. So moving it farther back is most likely a better option for me because this
is a very, very tight bathroom. In terms of the height of the toilet paper
holder here, I’m just going to mount it at about 28”. We found the center of the
stud here, indicated by the middle light, and I’m just going to make a pencil mark
there—the 28” mark. Yeah, I admit that’s a little overkill for
a toilet paper holder, but meh. There you go. That’s a solid toilet paper holder right
there. The tips in today’s tutorial will definitely
help you out with your toilet bathroom makeover. Now if you want additional tips and tricks,
head on over to HomeRepairTutor.com and grab my free 10-day guide to a bathroom makeover.
It’s awesome. It shows you exactly what you need to do on day one through ten of a
bathroom makeover so you stay on track and also stay on budget because we have budget
worksheets within that guide, and they’re really, really helpful. So I encourage you
to check that out over on HomeRepairTutor.com. That’s it for today. Let me know what your
questions are down in the comments. I’d be more than happy to help you out. Take care,
and we’ll talk to you soon.