Andrew Kay: Up against the wall
DIY? Do you DIY? Those three simple letters can strike fear into the hearts of even the butchest amongst us, men and women both. The thought that you will be expected to hang a door, put up shelves, mend a tap washer or replace a light fitting… scarier than abseiling, more terrifying than sky-diving, and as daunting as sport. Well, for me sport, I don’t do sport full stop!
Funnily enough I do do DIY. When I really need to, that is. For many many years I kept it as a dark secret that I am rather good at that sort of thing. I even have an A level in woodwork; well, it was the early seventies and at boys’ schools we had to do that sort of thing. So yes, I could at one time cut a pretty perfect dovetail joint and master the mortice and tenon. You may well wonder why I have hidden this fact. Well, the minute you let anyone know that you are proficient in all things practical your mates come out of the woodwork needing you (and your toolbox) to solve those little domestic traumas that otherwise require calling a trade professional, and paying the price asked. I’m all for calling out the pros when it comes to serious jobs. Okay, I can do a fair amount of things myself, but have I got the time? Have I got the patience may be more to the point. No, leave it to the pros for those big jobbies and preserve your soul from the traumas of DIY.
That said, there are some jobs that I simply cannot imagine asking anyone else to do, and amongst them is hanging pictures and the like on my walls. As I have previously said, the art collection is huge and the job of hanging it is no mean task. Over the years I have used all manner of fixings, too: nails, screws, those little brass coloured hooks with fine pins that always seem to bend or the heads ping off. More recently, plastic fixings that adhere to your wall with a sticky pad that they say will not damage paint or paper and will hold a huge weight. I liked the idea, but found them to be inconsistent in their reliability.
So when I was sent a Hardwall Takker to try, I looked on it with trepidation. Could this finally be the answer to my wall-fixing dilemmas?
I took it home, unpacked it and logged on to the world wide web. There I watched a very good instructional video and, thus instructed, I took the appliance in hand and went for it.
The Takker itself looks like a staple gun but with a winding device on the side. You position it where you need a fixing, and, pressing firmly against the surface, you wind away until the whole flat surface of the device is flush to the wall. Pulling away you see a tiny drilled hole and no mess; the dust is inside the device. All that is needed then is to take a fixing from the storage area in the handle, pop it into the side of the device and push it into place. It’s clean and tidy and as wall fixings go, very neat and discreet.
“I even have an A level in woodwork; well, it was the early seventies and at boys’ schools we had to do that sort of thing… I could at one time cut a pretty perfect dovetail joint”
I popped a picture on it, then a heavier one, and it held well. Oh how I wish I had had this before I started! The great thing is that it makes no mess, and using a second slot on the side you can pull the fixing clean out without the usual trauma of using a claw hammer. All that remains is a tiny hole that is easily filled. The ingenious hand-powered device lets you to hang pictures, mirrors, bathroom hooks and much more onto any surface in seconds, including brick, concrete, mortar, plasterboard and even ceramic tiles! I know, ceramic tiles… a scary thought, but one that it seems able to cope with.
So simple, and rather inexpensive too. I don’t often think this but every home should have one, or at least every home that wants to hang things tidily on their walls.
On a final note, I am sadly unavailable for the hanging of shelves, fixing of taps etcetera, and please please please, no flat pack horrors. I spent a whole day last year doing that, and that is a day I will never get back.
The Hardwall Takker kit costs just £24.99 including post and packaging within the UK/Ireland, visit www.takker.com
