Command Strips for picture hanging, 3 years later: A couple of failures to report

I’ve written two articles (here and here) about hanging pictures with Command Picture Hanging Strips (the interlocking double Velcro style), and I continue to be pretty impressed by them, but it’s important to come back a few years later and discuss how they have been holding up.  Since these work by non-permanent adhesion rather than by a physical object like a nail in the wall, we basically take it on faith that the adhesive will hold.  

As it turns out, I’ve had three partial or total failures, but don’t panic; they are special cases.  None of the optimally mounted pictures have fallen.  Here are the conditions that have caused problems:

Command Strips on picture mounted in 2017.  The one on the right has
pulled away from the wall due to having been adhered to a warped frame.
(Click the image to enlarge)

#1  Warped picture frame:  I’ve known about this problem since shortly after I mounted the picture in 2017.  The wall is flat and the picture frame was warped, so when I pressed all four corners to the wall (actually the top corners and the bottom about 1/3 up as they suggest), it didn’t take long for the frame’s natural warp to defeat the adhesive of the strip in that corner.  However, part of that strip is still adhered and the other strips are adhered, and it doesn’t appear to have shifted since I mounted it; so I consider it more of an FYI than a failure.  I actually mentioned this in my 2018 follow-up article about Command strips and included the figure that I’m re-using here.

#2  Non-stick backing paper:  Ok, it’s probably not meant to be non-stick, but it basically is.  This is an illustrated flat soft (probably balsawood) multi-panel that my wife has had for years; that is, several panels next to each other with a single piece of backing paper that results in flexible joints between panels, but when it’s completely flat, the panels make one unbroken surface that is illustrated.  My wife had mounted it to the wall by putting a single small nail between the two center panels, and a slight bulging out of the panels had partially pulled out the nail so it was rather precariously hanging… over the toilet in a bathroom.  Since I figured it would not even take an earthquake to make that thing fall, I re-mounted it with Command strips in 2017.  However, I found that it was hard to do because the paper was slightly waxy and it didn’t seem like the adhesive strips were sticking very well.  So, I put duct tape wherever I planned to put a Command strip, and adhered the strips to the back of the duct tape rather than to the backing paper.  Smart, eh?

Multi-panel wood wall hanging with uncooperative backing paper
(Click the image to enlarge)

Except that it turns out that even duct tape doesn’t stick perfectly to that backing paper (I always thought duct tape sticks to EVERYTHING).  The darned thing spontaneously fell a few months ago (the toilet lid was closed, thank goodness) and it turned out that the Command strips themselves were still strongly attached to both the wall and the duct tape, but the duct tape had separated from the backing paper!  The panel with its backing paper had slowly slide down against the duct tape that was adhered to the Command strip, and finally failed.  So without any really optimal way to mount that panel, I started over again, put MUCH larger pieces of duct tape on the back so it will be much harder for it to slip against the backing paper, put the adhesive strips on the duct tape, and put another nail in where the original one had been.  The nail alone was not sufficient originally, but putting it back prevents the panel from sliding down due to gravity, and the combination should work I think.  I neglected to photograph the back while I was doing this, and it’s a pain to get it lined up so you don’t get to see it, but here are photos of what the panel looks like and side views of the Command strips  and the duct tape.  You might be able to see the nail in the close-up; I colored it in so it’s not obvious.

This is a pretty unusual case, and might even be exacerbated by being in a bathroom in which showers are taken frequently; humidity probably did not help.

Poor adherence to plastic trim (Click the image to enlarge)

#3  Frame with a step:  It’s pretty obvious that an adhesive surface works best when completely matched with the surface to which it is supposed to stick.  However, we had two small framed photos in a different bathroom on a wall and I wanted to make sure they would not fall in a quake because Milo the dog actually likes to fluff up the little rug around the toilet and then lie down on the OTHER rug by the sink (don’t ask me why), right under those pictures.  I don’t like having things above that spot that can fall, even if small and light.  These frames aren’t conducive to maze picture hooks, so I originally stuck them up with Command strips (there were photos in my follow-up article to illustrate how black Command strips can be better for black frames even on a white wall).

However, similarly to what I described in #2, they started sliding down slowly and one of them finally failed.  In this case, they had been attached directly to the back of the frame, so this really is an example of the adhesive not being strong enough.  There’s no shower in this bathroom so we can’t blame humidity.

What made this another unusual example was that these frames were odd; the back of the frame was very thin and the picture and backboard were pushed in relative to the frame back, so there was essentially a thin trim and a step.  The adhesive strip thus did not have a full surface to stick to, and I just stuck them to the trim and some of the adhesive was just out in the air.  Apparently, this plastic is somewhat hard to stick to, and the combination of that and the small area actually being attached resulted in them losing their adherence over time.

Leveling out the step to bring the backing into the plane
of the plastic trim (Click the image to enlarge)

My solution was kind of like what I did for #2 but more complex, as you can see in the photos.  First, I put thin boards that I happen to have (they used to be dividers in small drawers) in the areas that I wanted to attach with Command strips.  They are just thick enough to fill the gap behind the frame “step” so now there’s surface area for the entire adhesive strip to contact; and some of the material is the wood rather than the plastic; better adhesion.  I taped them in place with LOTS of duct tape.  I stuck Command strips to the combination trim/boards, and this time, I used larger Command strips than before.  They seem to be pretty stable.

I should also acknowledge what I have heard from a few people, that adherence of Command strips to interior walls is pretty reliable in temperate climates, but places that have more extreme temperature swings can experience shrinking and expansion of the walls that weaken the bond.  I would think that interior temperature control would prevent that, but perhaps it’s a problem where people set their heaters and AC conservatively.

So the bottom line then is that I still like these Command picture hanging strips for sticking items to the walls, but it seems like straying too far from their officially intended use can be risky.  

Hmm, I must be losing my touch; I like to end articles on a pun whenever possible but I can’t think of any I haven’t already used.  I’m stuck—OH!

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