Tips on Installing a Towel Bar in Your Bathroom

We've got two towel bars in our bathroom and two towel rings. The first bit of advice I'd like to offer you would be to completely avoid those ridiculous suction cup towel bars; they don't work, and if you accidentally grab on to one for leverage when getting in or out of your shower, you could really hurt yourself if it lost its suction.

With that said, the next thing you want to do is determine the length of the towel bar. Do you have a small bathroom or a large one?

Pick a towel bar that will look proper in your bathroom. Recently I was in a friend's smaller bathroom that had a towel bar that ran across the entire wall. It looked stupid, and really if you are not going to practice your ballet with the bar, then don't install one that's too long.

Your next thing when installing a towel bar is to base it off of your wall. Towel bars are a lot easier to install in a standard wall, but some people have tiled walls. When purchasing a towel bar think about the trouble involved depending on your wall type.

If you have tiles, do you want to drill into them and risk cracking one, or would you rather apply one using a silicone caulk. Safer than suction cups, but not guaranteed to stay on the wall forever. If you have tiled walls, then use the silicone caulk to install the towel bar. You really want to avoid cutting tiles if you don't need to.

For those with regular walls, one problem many face is finding the wall stud. When installing the towel bar you really want to make sure each end is even with your wall studs. This sometimes can be an impossible task, especially if you have a smaller bathroom.

If you cannot find two studs, then you can always install one end of the towel bar to a wall stud, and install the other end of the bar using a wall anchor. You want a lot of support for wet towels so the towel bar does not fall down. The stud and wall anchor should provide plenty of support to heavier, wet towels.

Basically when installing a towel bar, find your wall studs before going out to buy the bar. After you find the studs, determine what type of towel bar you want, and install it depending on your wall type as discussed above.

Another personal tip of mine would be to steer clear of plastic towel bars with metal rods inside of them. Our last one broke with the weight of the towel. The metal bar stood intact, but we had to remove it due to the broken plastic.