Wall anchors, those little plastic ribbed cones you drive into dry wall or plaster so you can attach a fixture using screws, have always made me nervous.
When do you use a plastic one? When do you use the ribbed hammer-in type and when do you use the threaded drive-in type? What about the weird little lead anchors? And when do you use a toggle instead?
Most of all...when you remove a fixture for good, and want to patch, spackle and paint the wall, how do you get the *&%*#-ing anchor out so it doesn't leave a lump?
At last, the answers to all the questions: The guide to fasteners at Natural Handyman.
Turns out you can remove the little plastic cones simply by inserting a long screw a bit of the way in, then using the screw as a handle and wiggling the anchor out. (Did everyone else know this? I must have missed shop class that day. Ooops...when I was in school, they didn't let girls take shop.)
