wanamaker

I've installed a toggle bolt to help with holding up a book shelf I got at IKEA. I might've put a little too much weight on the shelf, so now there's a bit of a bulge coming from the toggle bolt through the drywall. I'm afraid that if I keep it this way the bolt will shoot right through the wall and the shelf will come crashing down.

The simplest choice would obviously be to use less weight - which I've done. However it's still showing a bit of a bump there so I think the damage is worse with any weight.

The only solution I can think of is to have a much larger toggle bolt that will disperse the weight over a larger area of the drywall to alleviate the problem. But I don't know what's available out there to do that.

Anyone have a better solution that maintains that clean look (and only that)?

Blue Jay

Sounds like you have already damaged the dry wall and a toggle bolt in dry wall is not the best choice. Would be best to use screws into the studs.

wanamaker

Toggle bolts are specifically for drywall when there are no studs. That's why I used them. What I'm looking for is something a bit larger than a standard toggle bolt.

nealtw

I think Bluejay was trying to point out that if you have allready damaged the drywall, any size togle will not work, You will have to cut a hole so you can slip in a peice of wood and repair the drywall and then you will have a peice of wood in there to to hang your shelf with.

wanamaker

Cheers for that. As much as I didn't want to, I'll just have to put a stud in there myself.

nealtw

You don't need as much as a whole stud. Just cut out enough to slip in a couple boards big enough to screw thru the good drywall to the new wood and you will have something to screw your patch to.
If you cut out 8"x 8" and you put two 2x4s about 15" long behind the hole. This work good if you use screws.