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I want to mount my 120cm long blinds into the face of the wall above my 110(ish) cm PVC window recess, but I don't feel like standard plugs would be sufficient. There are three brackets, each held with two screws, left and right and another centre. My idea was to glue a piece of timber about 18mm thick (due to availability at the local B&Q) to the wall and wood screw the brackets into that, with 18-20mm wood screws.

First of all, am I right in assuming regular plugs wouldn't hold the weight? And is my proposed solution sensible? I'm not particularly confident drilling into the mantel, but if this would be the best solution, can you provide a good tutorial on what to do?

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  • How is the wall constructed? Stone/brick/block? Wood timber framed? Also pictures of the area would be good. Typically above and to the side of the windows there are structural supports for the wall you can mount the binds too. – diceless Oct 1 '15 at 16:27
  • Brick external, I have no idea about frame though. All you can see from photos is a plain plasterboard surface with a PVC window recessed in. Looks like this [link]pvcverticalblinds.co.uk/uploads/1/1/7/3/11738763/… – ProfDrum Oct 2 '15 at 13:39
  • How old is your home? – diceless Oct 2 '15 at 17:04
  • About 6-7 months. – ProfDrum Oct 2 '15 at 18:23
  • So it is probably safe to assume it is wood timber frame. Around the window you should have king studs (run from floor to ceiling), header (above the window) and jack studs (runs from the floor to support the header). Go to the hardware store and pickup a stud finder. This is an invaluable tool for a home owner. You can use his to find studs under the wall to mount things like blinds or shelves. Typical window framing has about 7.5 cm of wood on either side of the window and at least another 7.5 cm above the window. – diceless Oct 2 '15 at 18:41
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Since you have a B&Q locally and measure in cm I will assume you are in the UK

It is likely your recently-constructed house has a pre-formed steel lintel over the window with a brick outer leaf to the wall, and a breeze-block (aerated concrete blocks) inner leaf that is plastered.

enter image description here

There are builders who, for speed of erection, use prefabricated timber frames for the load bearing structure with a purely decorative outer leaf of brickwork. I suspect these are relatively uncommon in the UK.

Other types of lintel include steel box lintels and reinforced concrete lintels.

If you drill a pilot hole a couple of inches deep, using a masonry drill, you should be able to tell, by what comes out, what sort of material you have in the places where you need to position the support for your blind.

Two large screws into masonry wall-plugs should be adequate for a 110 x 120 cm blind.

I wouldn't glue a wood strip to the existing interior surface. I wouldn't trust paint and surface plaster to handle much shear-stress.

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So, from totality of info I assume drywall with no ability/intention to locate structural members. So use an expanding "molly" type anchor in one of the mounting holes and a small plastic plug in the other, for each bracket. Plenty strong.

enter image description here

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  • Yeah, that will work. But these are hard to remove if you want to go in a different direction. I prefer something like Hilti toggler: homedepot.com/p/… These can be removed relatively easily by snipping the plastic zips and just letting the toggle fall down inside the wall. – bobfandango Oct 2 '15 at 20:58
  • Togglers are nice but 45 cents versus $9.98 each? Mollys are easy to get rid of too; just remove the screw and tap below the surface, then spackle. Or punch them through and gone like the toggler. I use togglers for heavier items. – Jimmy Fix-it Oct 2 '15 at 21:48
  • I'm leaning toward spring toggles, mainly because I know if I mess up I can repait it easier (I dont understand spackle?). Are they going to be strong enough? – ProfDrum Oct 3 '15 at 21:46
  • Spring toggles are plenty strong. You don't want to use two of them in close proximity to each other or you could weaken the wall. I don't know the arrangement or spread of your mounting holes, but you could probably use one toggle and one plastic plug in each mounting bracket. Spackle is an easily sanded wall patching compound. – Jimmy Fix-it Oct 4 '15 at 21:06
  • These are actually easy to remove if you know the trick. Take a needle-nose plier and flex the surface flange a few times. It'll pop off like a washer. Now just push the rest through the drywall. – isherwood May 14 '19 at 17:55

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