Adhesive Mounting Strips and Other Sticky Business
One of the goals of this blog is to make note of anything that notably enhances or diminishes the serenity of my life as a parent. The “little things” didn’t seem as important before. In the larger scheme of things, the words “don’t sweat the small stuff” are great advice. But time, energy, money, and never forget sleep are all key elements in the formula that keeps my stress level down. Consequently, the little things aren’t so little, and it’s a joy and a relief when things work the way they are supposed to and a disaster when they don’t.
I have to say that I’ve been 95%-100% disappointed by adhesive mounting strips. Let me explain why.
The Boon Frog Pod
I was worried by the mounting instructions that declare that if you do not follow them to the letter, your Boon Frog Pod will not stay up. Sure enough, 24 hours after following the instructions I could hear a familiar crashing noise in the bathroom as the frog pod fell into the bath tub. Apparently, adhesive mounting strips don’t adhere well to tile that is drenched and steamed every day.
I love the Frog Pod, so I used the screw mounting option to hang it on the wall. This was OK, but I really would have preferred to hang it over the tub in case there was any water to drain. A year later when I took the Frog Pod down, the adhesive strips that I hadn’t removed before screwing the frog pod to the wall stuck steadfastly to the paint and pulled it off the wall.
Extra Strength Adhesive Mounting Strips
I really liked the green leaf bed canopies I got from IKEA. They’re a bit heavy, so I used extra-strength adhesive mounting to attach them to the wall in the far corner of my daughter’s room. It looked like a palm tree. Unfortunately, a year later when I took them down, the adhesion was so strong that when I pulled the 2 x 5 strip off the wall, several layers of paint came off with it leaving a big hole that needed to be patched.
Child Proofing Locks that use Adhesive Mounting Strips
I’ve tried a few different, mainstream, brands. Mostly the locks came off fairly soon. I had one on my fridge that eventually came off in about a month. I don’t think it makes sense to have a safety product that is going to stop working at a time when I might need it to work. Most of the IKEA safety products I’ve bought that use the adhesive mounting strips used a very strong adhesive, so they didn’t come off until I used force to get them off. I should have guessed, but using force to pull them off stripped off several layers of paint as well.
NotNeutral Chalk Board Wall Panel
I got one of these as an impulse buy with my BB2 child’s table and chairs which I love and can’t recommend highly enough. The chalk board is cute, but I can’t use it because it uses adhesive mounting strips. The ones that came with it aren’t strong enough, and I’m loath to use stronger ones and have more paint problems down the road. Also, the wood is thin, so I can’t screw on mounting hardware. I could drill some holes at the top, but it wouldn’t look as nice.
Final Words
Most of the products above, I bought not realizing that they attached with adhesive mounting strips. I just saw the picture of the item magically hanging on the wall and was wowed. In retrospect, asking about these pertinent details before buying would have been wise.
July 16th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
I love using mounting putty. I went to the hardware store and bought some Lepage Fun-Tak Mounting Putty. I was worried it might stain the wall because it’s blue, but so far no problems.
I haven’t tried it for anything heavy, but I mounted 10 eeBoo Counting Birds Wall Cards on the wall in January and they don’t show any sign of budging. Another great thing is when you mount them, you can nudge the picture if it isn’t placed exactly right.