!@#$%^&*…How Do I Fix This Problem?

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Like most normal people, I planned on hanging mirrors in the bathroom. The mirrors I chose are particularly fancy because they have the ability to tilt up and down. With little people in the house, I fully expected potential pulling and moving after mounting pivoting mirrors.

In order to make sure they stay firmly attached the wall, my husband and I added studs in the framing since the bathroom wall was already open. The plan was to screw the mirrors into sturdy wood as opposed to a toggle bolt in drywall waiting to get ripped out. Mounting pivoting mirrors onto studs ensures they do not come off without a fight*! An overused toggle bolt would leave a gaping hole in the drywall along with a shattered mirror and surely involve a trip to the emergency room. 

It was a great master plan.

We did all the planning and prep work inside the wall. Then we put sheetrock up and the wall was now flat, perfect and painted. It was time to install the fancy mirrors.

Much to my dismay I realized I did not write down the height of the studs prior to putting the drywall back up! Neither did anyone else. The thought of making extra holes in a wall we had so worked on so hard made me sick.

!@#$%^&*…How do I fix this mounting pivoting mirrors problem?!?

In one of our many flashes of improvisation throughout the remodel, I thankfully recollected taking a picture**. We had a wonderful friend who stopped by, graciously spending his entire weekend helping our sorry selves. It was one of those rare moments where I actually picked up the camera and captured the moment to memorialize our gratitude to his helpfulness.***

Pat to the rescue!

My husband and I quickly found the picture and estimated what body part we thought matched up with the height of the horizontal stud. Next, we called Pat to ask how high his nose was off of the ground.

One 5’ 3” measurement later we hit our stud right on!

5’ 3” will be forever known as the “Pat Measurement”. How wide is the living room? Two and a half Pats. How high is the light fixture? One Pat and two feet. Most common ceiling height? About 1.5 Pats…

When you say, “!@#$%^&*…how do I fix this problem?”

There are times with all your planning and well-thought-out plans you make a mistake. While it can be somewhat painful to bring up past mistakes (like this one), there are other times when you happily discover an unexpected solution.

Most mistakes are not a checkmate. Normally there is some workaround, hack, or creative solution.

There is no such thing as cheating.

• Asking for help from friend, mentor, and/or book is totally legit.
• Google and Pinterest are your friends too–is that what brought you here? 😉
• TAKE LOTS OF PICTURES! You never know when it will be your memory. Or if you want to start a blog years later…
• Perhaps a good night’s sleep is all you need to clear your head.
• Or a Mango Rockstar**** to get the mojo back.

However, there is such a thing as doing it wrong. Like putting a sharp 90 degree eletrical elbow on a plumbing return from the bathroom sink to the stack. Did the homeowner hire an electrician to do plumbing? Was the electrical department closer to the front door than the plumbing department in Home Depot? Was an electrical elbow just laying around the house and seemed good enough? I have no idea, but it certainly was wrong and a problem waiting to happen–there certainly was a very real clog collecting in the sharp corner.

Shortcuts are not acceptable either.

But if a solution is legitimate and to code, it is an acceptable fix to your problem.

What kind of creative solutions and/or specialized measurements have you encountered in your projects?

*Only if a fight involves a screwdriver unscrewing the screws in the mounting hardware. 😉
**Yes, a stud finder, which I clearly bought in the last post, would have worked too, but the incident happened after this one. I did not feel the need to buy a stud finder yet since we had opened up the walls in this house and could clearly see (and supposedly measure) the location of everything.
***Not knowing I would start a blog and announce how awesome Pat is to the world.
****Sadly, I have not seen these in at least 5 years. Maybe it is a good thing…*****
*****Blogging is a terrible thing! 😉 I now know I can import Mango Rockstars from the UK on Amazon. At 17 times the normal price. All it takes is a good craving and that price could justify a plane ticket to the UK!