a new batch of people have turned green. I wonder if what they say about how easy it is to be green is true...

I guess I'll find out, since I'm in no danger of turning red (not easily embarassed) nor blue (can't hold my breath that long).

Huh? You've lost me...

- Trevor

Look at the color of the names of the posters.

I turned green and I didn't even notice. It must be because I am envious of Mark's workshop (or rather the skill to use all of those tools).

I am trying to hang some shelves today and failing miserably at it, I hate plaster walls

Use a stud finder! (I'm sure there's a joke there somewhere...)

We replastered all of the walls after I got this house. I should probably finish the last couple rooms. Sigh.

Yeah I would but stud finders do not work on plaster walls, at least the one I have doesn't.

*surveys the 10 holes she has drilled in a row so far trying to locate a stud*

Sigh.

Well spotted, I hadn't noticed (probably because I never read my own posts).

You should be able to use something that senses metal, then. The lathe is presumably fastened with metal to the stubs.

I read a thread with one of my posts in it. I clicked it, not noticing it was mine because the author's name was green. "Hey, this sounds like what I wrote!"
"Oh".

If you have a fairly powerful magnet handy, run it slowly back and forth over the wall until you locate a nail- or screw-head. It works quite well, you can feel the drag as you pass anything magnetic.

pca

Or just strap on a pair of the X-ray goggles that Patrick is wearing in his current avatar picture...

This girl has decided who the hell needs shelves anyway. After 2 hours I got the left half of one bracket up, seems the right side is off of the stud though. Grrrrrrr.......

Seems the studs are spaced 15" apart, I did find that out finally and have many holes to spackle.

*kicking myself*

Seems that the stud sensor does work on plaster walls once you have fresh batteries in it and know where a stud is to test it on.

I guess one is never too old to learn something new. Now to go off and hang 3 shelves in my work room.

Ha!

Has decided to give up and is heading off to the hospital for stitches now. Don't ask.

Sorry to hear that!

For what it's worth, any time I do a home project, I don't consider it a success unless I've hurt myself somehow in the process.

Arrgh... I can empathise with strangely spaced studs. My house was built in 1860, apparently before they had invented standards.

When I recently tried to put a small shelf in my bathroom, I ended up cutting away a horizontal inch-wide strip of plaster and lathe until I located the 2 studs, and then fashioning a wooden cross brace to fix to the studs, sitting nearly flush with the wall. I then spackled over the top, and fixed the shelf into the brace. It was the only way I could find to put the shelf where I actually needed it.

Uh, sorry.

I set up my new dishwasher (a countertop model, actually; All I needed to do was install the quick disconnect on the faucet) without hurting myself. Yay.

My house is circa 1920. There were a few places where they did some weird things when they were hanging the lathe, but the stud spacing was pretty standard otherwise.

It didn't matter; We ripped 6 inches of plaster around the walls and ran new wiring to replace the knob and tube it came with, and dropped cat 5 and rg59 to every room. So there's new plaster in every room of my house.

Don't ask.

But I always ask. It comes from getting too many stitches in such stupid ways that I'm instantly curious to know about other people's stitches. :P

So.... what did you do?

They ended up not putting in stitches and just used steri-strips but since I hit it so hard with the hammer that it split the skin they did take x-rays, nothing broken thankfully. I wish they had given me something for the throbbing pain though, aspirin just isn't cutting it.

Now to go clean the blood off of the wall.........

>Seems the studs are spaced 15" apart

They'll actually be 15.25" (average) apart, except near doorways and/or windows.

Steri-strips are a modern miracle! I have several huge packets full of various sizes of them here, and more in the first aid kit that goes climbing with me.

For those who have not yet discovered them, DO SO! They act like sticky stitches, placed directly over the wound in a such a manner as to pull the two sides together and keep them that way, and clean. Best for clean cuts/slices, lousy for scrapes. Healing time is vastly improved, since the skin doesn't have to waste effort developing a scab to do the same job.

Cheers

But one doesn't get any sympathy for steri-strips not that I probably would have anyway with stitches. I'll pick up some more of them tomorrow at work, I'm sure these won't last for 10 days.

placed directly over the wound in a such a manner as to pull the two sides together

You want to try staples for that . When I cut my head open in France (snowboarding) earlier in the year, I thought that I'd misheard or mistranslated what the French doctor was telling me.

Turns out, I hadn't. She put two staples in my scalp.

Oh, staples. You have my belated sympathy

Sorry to hear about the masochistic (sp?) incident. But jeez that was funny.
depending on the size of the shelves and the load (books weigh a lot), you could use a metal spring toggle to hold them.

One of my friends in grade school (like back in 1986 or something) fell off the slide onto the tarmac/concrete (none of this wussy rubber stuff they got going on now). He ended up having like 10 staples in his head or something.

It was amazing how much enjoyment he got out of showing them to the girls and grossing them out...

I assume steri-strips are akin to butterfly bandages? If so they do work well but have a tendency to scar. At least they did on me. Right in the middle of my forehead, too. Oh well... I usually carry superglue and Nu Skin whenever I go camping/hiking/doing anything dangerous. I love Nu Skin particularly, as I use it to prevent blisters in places I know will normally get blisters. Great for bowling.