Hanging a Mirror, the Clueless Approach

Hanging a heavy mirror using cleats

In the world of DIY task around the house, the most common beginner project is probably hanging a picture. Just about anyone with a hammer or a flat rock can do this, although it can be harder than it looks. Just ask eHow.com contributor Melissa Lewis, whose journey to a degree in psychology and stint as a teacher apparently didn't include any shop classes. We can say that because, well, we read through her instructions for "How to Hang a Large Mirror"¹ at HomeSteady.com. We found them... interesting...

Lewis was required by DMS² to introduce her topic, which is where we found this misstatement:

"Hanging a small mirror is easy and can be done simply with proper weighted picture hooks."

We think she means "picture hooks of the proper capacity," though it's not easy to tell. That often happens when ignorant people reword text written by knowledgeable people... Whatever the case, Melissa babbles on (for quite a while: 415 words) about how to hang a wood-framed mirror. About a third of that is instructions for installing the hardware on the mirror frame. That's where you get unhelpful instructions like

"Screw in a D-ring on either side..." We presume she means "on either side of the back of the frame," but she never says... we also liked. "You can use a small drill bit to get it started, but do not go too deep..." Which caused us to wonder what Lewis considers "small." But never mind: then there are the messy instructions for stringing picture wire, which she simply reworded from wikihow. Onward to Melissa's instructions for the wall hardware: "Find the studs in the area you plan to hang the mirror. (If you are not using studs, skip to the next step.)" Lordy, we sure hope someone was "using studs" when they built the wall... and then there's marking your studs: "Mark an X on the penciled line on the two middle studs that are half the distance apart as the width of your mirror." We're not sure what that actually says, but we assume Lewis thinks that studs are everywhere (her sex life must be tiring). She also has suggestions for using molly bolts instead of "picture hooks that are weighted [sic] for your mirror": "...screw in your molly bolts that are weighted for your mirror. Remove the screws from the molly bolts and hang your mirror carefully with two people." There's that "weighted" bullshit again... it's accompanied by Melissa's clear lack of knowledge about how molly bolts (or toggle bolts) work: if you "Remove the screws," what will the mirror hang from? And as an aside, what are Lewis' plans for caring for the two people she hung with the mirror?

Besides doing the poor copy-reword-paste job typical of a never-did-it-herselfer, Lewis failed to address such topics as frameless mirrors, non-rectangular mirrors, and metal-framed mirrors. She gave no instructions for "Find the studs" and left her readers with nothing to hook that wire to if they're using molly bolts. She also totally ignored cleats and other linear hangers in favor of "proper weighted picture hooks." Small wonder the Antisocial Network staffer who found this post nominated Melissa for Dumbass of the Day!

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_4840337_hang-large-mirror.html
² DMS was Demand Media Studios, which has since changed its name to Leaf Group. We still call it "DMS," though, because you can't spell "dumbass" without "DMS."

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