Xenia’s wood and pipe hanging bar

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September 6, 2015: Happy Labor Day weekend!

What more perfect way for me to celebrate the holiday than to travel up to NYC and volunteer a little home DIY labor in my mother, Xenia’s beautiful Brooklyn home.

I gave Xenia a wood and pipe hanging bar and organizer set that I made back in July. I learned how to make it using Ana White’s Gabriel Wall Hanging Organizer build plan (which was awesome…complete, detailed instructions, complete with videos).

Ma saw this picture of me holding my completed set on July 12th. She immediately texted me with the response, “I want one”.

  
So I gave the set to her during her visit to Maryland a week later. And now I’m here in Brooklyn about to mount it to her wall.

And what a wall it is. I’m about to mount the wood and hanging bar to brick.

I’m excited about getting it up on the brick wall, but I’m also a little nervous. I’ve never mounted anything to a brick wall before. All I’ve ever mounted items to were plaster (I haven’t even done a dry wall and stud mount yet…and trust me, I would LOVE to!!!).

After a quick call to my brother Mal (who assured me that drilling the brick will be easy…he’s done it plenty of times), I got busy with getting this puppy on Mama’s wall.

After marking the location of the wood block on the brick using painters tape…

…I temporarily removed the pipe hanging bar so that I can make the pre-drill holes on the wood.

I used a sharpie to mark holes along the center of the wood block, roughly 10″ apart.

Once I completed the marks on the block, I used my power drill to drill holes through the wood (using a 3/16″ drill bit).

Xenia helped me hold the wood block in place so that I can mark the hole positions on the brick with the Sharpie.

I then used a masonry 1/4″ drill bit to drill the holes into the brick.

I’m trying two different anchors for this wall mount…hollow wall anchors…

…and Sharkies (plastic anchor inserts).

For Xenia’s brick wall, I found that the plastic Sharkie anchors worked best for the mount.

 

After inserting 4″ 3/16 machine screws through each of the holes on the wood block…

…we screwed the wood mount into the brick wall using the anchors.

Working together, we got the job done. Xenia held the block in place using the bar while I secured each of the screws using the power drill.

It turned out to be a very easy mount. Much easier than mounting the bar on my plaster walls in the condo!

So we spent the rest of our free time on Saturday dressing up Xenia’s new hanging bar! (Well, she did all the staging while I watched sipping coffee).

Turned out to be a perfect way for her to hang her pots and pans.

Can’t forget the hanging wall organizer. Here’s how it looks on the bar.

And, how sweet…Xenia has chosen to add the decorated memory tin box I made for her back in March. 🙂

We were sure to hang it above her bookcase where her multi-function printer, copier, scanner and fax machine sits.

Now she’s trying out some pot holders…

And while at the Lowes in Brooklyn, we picked up some jumbo size S hooks so that she can add and remove more hooks on the fly.

Another arrangement…

…ok, fun time over. It’s Labor Day weekend. I’m here for Xenia to put me to work. Next? V-