How to hang pictures straight on drywall

Of all the things my wife asks me to do around the house, the thing I hate most is hanging pictures. I am a perfectionist, so when I hang pictures, it has to be straight. I also hate putting more holes than I have to in the drywall.

It used to take me over an hour to hang a picture, because I have to take a ton of measurements, and do all sorts of stuff to the drywall to make the picture hang straight and secured. I really hate drywall and all the fastening hardware they make for it. None of them work well. One little tug and you will rip them right out of the wall. They are also a pain in the butt to work with. You have to hammer a lot of them in, but they are made of cheap plastic, so the moment you take a hammer to them, they smash into bits. I can’t count the number of unnecessary holes I’ve created because of bad drywall anchors.

But, today I discovered a technique that works really well and is super fast.

Here are the tools you need

  1. A laser leveler – Like this one: Bosch GLL 30 – It will help you draw a straight line on your wall, making it much easier to take measurements
  2. These monkey hooks
  3. A standard level – to make any offset from your laser line

Here are the steps you take

  1. Shine the laser line where the frame should be hung, specifically on where the hooks will be.
  2. Use your standard level to make sure everything is leveled, or measure any offset you need to measure and mark the spot
  3. Push those monkey hooks into the wall

That’s it. You’re done. No need for any other tools. No screw driver, no cleaning up drywall dust, no marking reference points or checking if everything is leveled. So simple. Can’t believe it took me so long to figure this out.