Hanging plan
The walls you are considering and what each one is like, where each piece is going, and the hardware to buy with the rating it carries. Three sheets, filled in as you measure.
The walls sheet is essential before anything goes up; the placements sheet earns its keep afterwards. Rating a wall before you hang on it takes five minutes and is the difference between a decision and a habit. The placements sheet is what you read in three years when something needs checking, and the hardware sheet is a shopping list that carries its own conditions.
Candidate walls
One row per wall you are considering. Light is a reading if you have one, in lux. The ratings are your own judgment from what you observed, not a grade.
Where each piece goes
One row per piece once you have chosen its wall. Weight is from the weight calculator or a scale. Rated load is the figure the hardware's own maker publishes for that wall, at the maker's own margin.
Hardware to buy
One row per item, with the rating printed on its own package or technical sheet and the wall that rating assumes. Copy the condition as well as the number.
How to use this sheet
- One row per wall you are considering, including the ones you rule out. A struck-through wall with a reason beside it is what stops you reconsidering it next spring.
- The light column is a reading, not an impression. Take it at the brightest hour, slightly in front of where the piece will be. Measuring the light covers the method.
- Copy a rating with its conditions. In the hardware sheet, the conditions column is not optional: a number without the wall thickness and the test conditions it assumes is not a rating.
- The verdict column is yours. It is your judgment from what you observed, not a grade anyone issued.
- Fill in the checked date each year. A practitioner guide asks for hanging methods to be re-checked annually, and the column is there so you can see when you last did.
The starter row is the Okonkwos' sofa wall, invented: drywall, 450 lux at the brightest hour, lit about six hours a day, direct sun on part of it, an interior wall with no heat source, and a verdict of usable with rotation. It shows the shape of a useful row, which is three observations and one judgment. The walls sheet is seeded from what you told the setup form about the room, so the first row may already describe your own conditions; rename it and add the rest.
This sheet records readings, products and dates. It does not rate your wall: a published anchor rating belongs to one product in the condition its maker names, and the maker says the age and condition of your own wall must be considered. It does not know what is behind the surface, and it is not a substitute for finding cable and pipe before you drill. It never adds two fixings together.