It’s an ode to the lever bolt, an elegant and inexpensive fixture for wobbly towel racks, not-so-floating shelves, and any other fixture that needs to hold some weight on a hollow wall. For less than $1 per bolt, I gained freedom from wavy wall mounts.
The loose heated towel rail in my bathroom was one of those annoyances that my family endured, even though it regularly exhausted our patience and made our lives a little worse. Every time I heard someone washing their hands, I feared it would be a tug for the hand drying towels that would yank the rod out of the wall again, setting me up for another attempt at repair.
Part of the problem: Towel bars are typically 24 inches long, but the wall of a typical American home (insofar as such a thing exists) has a solid wood rack every 16 inches. One end of this strip does not line up with the stud.
To compensate for this, most towel bars come with a pair of plastic drywall plugs designed to securely hold support screws in a hollow wall without stud support (or interlocking between studs). But these thin plugs can only support a few pounds of weight. Even a wet bath towel puts too much stress on such a fragile anchor, and if your daycare decides to use it as a monkey, forget about it.
I tried to secure the bar with increasingly thick plastic dowels and screws, and my daughter learned not to hang from it, but over time the bar still started to wobble again.
And then I heard about toggle switches.
Personnel selection
This varied set of butterfly bolts will help you tackle a variety of wall mounting projects. Larger wings support heavier loads.
In the midst of my towel rack woes, the TikTok algorithm rewarded me with a video from a TV wall mount expert who kept talking about switches. If he couldn’t find a stand where he needed one, he would attach the TV bracket to the wall with a bolt instead. He trusts them enough to hold a $3,000 77-inch OLED display, so I figured they’d be fine as a towel rack.
The toggle switch is pushed through a small hole in the wall and then clicks or opens inside. Once you tighten it, the lever will grip the back of the surface it is attached to (drywall, lath, metal framing, and even cinder blocks) so that the bolt is secured to both sides of the wall. This gives the bolt much more stability and strength than many other drywall anchors.
A small ⅛-inch butterfly switch can support 30 pounds per bolt even in thin drywall. But you can find many other sizes and styles, the heaviest of which are rated to support more than 200 pounds of regular half-inch-thick drywall. If you use multiple levers, the maximum weight increases even more.
If you can find a hairpin, you should use it. Ben Seaman of Xpress TV Mounting in Houston—a TikTok TV installer—told me that he’s usually comfortable installing a TV with just switch bolts. But he always uses a wooden dowel if it’s in a good location, and then adds lever bolts for extra support if needed.
This is exactly the approach I used with the towel rack: one end in the stud, the other end bolted to the drywall.
Now when I dry my hands, all I smell is terry cloth. No wobbling, no worrying about how or when I can fix the bar when it inevitably comes off. Six months later it is still exactly where I installed it.
After fixing my towel rack, I started looking for projects to switch up. A wire shelf in a tiny slanted closet with a strange frame: movable and hard as stone. Toilet paper holder at the bottom: wings unfolded, no shaking.
Small mirror near the front door? In fact, this setting could not be toggled. The hole for the switch is larger than the head of the bolt it is attached to. Wall decor is usually light enough that it does not require a mounting bracket, so without this fastener between the bolt head and the hole in the wall, the bolt will fall right through. There is a time and place for everything, and in this case, a durable screw-in drywall anchor is your best choice.
A tumbler bolt is also not a reliable option for all heavy loads. Seaman told me that when he installs a full-swivel TV mount, he always uses a pin or some kind of durable backing.
“The weight that comes from that wall is a completely different weight,” he said of the movable brackets. He compared it to bicep curls: “If I told you to hold the dumbbell at the top, you could hold it all day. But the second you extend your arm straight, there’s a lot more force on your shoulder.”
So if you’re installing something that needs to support a lot of weight under lever action, especially if it moves, think twice before relying on levers alone.
If you plan to start switching, you’ll usually need a drill and some attachments, although these aren’t always necessary. You may also need putty, sandpaper, and paint to fill old holes—the same kit you’ll need to fill any hole in the wall. And be prepared to deal with dust.
Tumbler bolts come in several varieties. Regular butterfly bolts are cheap and can hold a lot of weight, and I worked my way through a box of 3/16″ butterflies with 3″ bolts. However, even this was overkill for some of my projects, and I think most people would be better off using a kit as varied as this one, with a mixture of butterflies and shorter 2-inch bolts.
Sailor told me that he will use any switch bolts, but prefers a type called Snaptoggle. They cost a little more, but are designed to hold more weight than similar sized butterflies. He says he thinks the quality control is better than other types and brands.
Guest choice
These lever bolts support more weight than standard butterfly anchors relative to the size of the hole in the wall.
I also experimented with the EZ Ancor no-drill toggle bolt, which can be installed with just a screwdriver. Buyer ratings are mixed and this toggle switch is the most expensive type I’ve ever seen, but I followed the instructions carefully and it worked for me.
Personnel selection
Installation can be tricky, but you can install these bolts without a pre-drilled hole. This means you only need a screwdriver.
Plastic flip bolts are also available, but metal ones are more durable and really inexpensive, so I’m having a hard time thinking of a project where plastic switches would be a better choice.
I also recommend buying a few more switch bolts than you think you’ll need. I threw a few at the wall, where they will remain for decades until some demolition crew finds them. Maybe then I’ll finally figure out where all the studs are.
This article was edited by Megan Beauchamp and Maxine Bilder.
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