Never lived in a house with plastered walls before – always been plasterboard and lining/wall paper. We’ve had approx 5-10mm of plaster ‘skimmed’ over the old artex that preceded good taste.

Sooooooooo, after polyfillering/sanding/repainting the 50p sized crater that was my last effort at providing a hanging point for a picture, what should I be using to hold a screw for a picture hanging?

Then we’ve got a mirror on the way that weighs 5kg……what should I be using for this?

Any help gratefully received, as the missus is still sniggering about the crater.

Edit -,wrong weight of mirror

I’m not quite sure what walls you’ve got? Is it a solid backing plaster such as browning, old school sans/cement render, hardwall etc then skim?

by ‘plaster walls’ as opposed to plasterboard do you mean old school Plaster and Lath – a hollow / non load bearing wall timber framed wall? Or do you mean plastered masonry?

For the former use something like a spring toggle fixing that will go through the hole you drill and spread out behind.

For the former use a rawl plug

You need to be drilling though the plaster and into the wall itself. Whatever it’s made of. Brick, block, whatever. You will not get a good fixing by only drilling into the plaster.

Yeah, so the artex was over plasterboard on a hollow stud internal wall.

I’m thinking ive got 5-10mm of plaster over a 12-18mm plasterboard. Will one of the spring loaded fixings be the thing if I don’t hit a stud?

Will one of the spring loaded fixings be the thing if I don’t hit a stud?

You mean a toggle bolt. I wouldn’t use them on a mirror – you will probably either have the mirror hanging loose or you will over tighten them and crack the mirror, even with the rubber grommets in the holes.

If you really can’t get a solid fixing then I would use mirror adhesive with plasterboard/cavity fixings like this to temporarily hold the mirror until the adhesive goes off (leave them in though)

Don’t be tempted to use ordinary industrial adhesive such as Gripfill, over time it will react with the silver backing on the mirror. Use proper mirror adhesive – your mirror won’t fall off.

Well if it does it’ll take half the wall with it.

Well if it does it’ll take half the wall with it.

and that would just be the start of the bad luck 🙂

I’ve recently used some of these plasterboard fixings and they really are very good. Worth the money in my opinion

If you think that you might hit a wooden stud try a pilot hole through the plaster (masonry or old hss bit) to suit the screw diameter and a woodscrew. Simplest and bestest.
My next choice would be an expanding fitting like the Rawlplug Interset, but you do need a good idea of the total board thickness to get the right size
Spring toggles need a much larger diameter hole, maybe 12mm for a 3mm screw, but they work well. Just remember to attach the mirror bracket to the fitting before you poke it through the wall 🙂

I feel your pain.

+1 for grip it

These might work better than the screw in type which will almost certainly break up thick plaster.