Most anchors and bolts list how much weight they can carry on the packaging. Toggle anchors and bolts have metal clasps or toggles at the end that expand once they’re placed in drywall. The clasps hook onto the back of drywall, which better supports and distributes the TV’s weight on the wall. Anchors made for a lighter load can crack and rip your drywall when supporting too heavy objects. If the wall anchors are not rated for the weight of your TV, you need to cut open the wall and install solid wood blocking in between the studs so you could utilize that to screw the TV mount into it.

You can use a flat mount or you can use an articulating mount. As long as it’s supported properly and installed properly, it doesn’t matter which one you use. Hanging your TV from the ceiling is another popular mounting choice when wall studs aren’t available. Both swivel and fixed mounts are great to use with ceiling mounts.

You might need to jiggle or shake the tab a bit to get the toggle to expand. The metal toggle at the end of the anchor fastens to the back of your drywall. This better disperses the weight of your TV. When it is hung up, all of the drywall resists its weight instead of one fixed point.

In place of toggle anchors, use molly bolts. These bolts are similar to toggle anchors, except they need a setting tool to fasten the anchor to the wall. Place the molly bolt inside the hole and hook a setting tool over the screw. Then, squeeze the handles of the tool. This pulls the screw towards you and extends the bolt’s butterfly backing, fastening it to the drywall. [9] X Research source

If your bracket has additional screws or bolts to tighten the TV bracket to the mount, screw those in with a screwdriver after you’ve placed the TV on the mount.

If you don’t have a table saw, use a circular or jig saw. You will be left with 2 pieces of wood: one with the 45° angle facing up and the other facing down. These pieces interlock to create the French cleat. The piece of wood with the 45° angle facing up is drilled into your wall while the piece angled down screws into your TV.

This piece of wood is finished, unless you want to paint it to match your wall or camouflage with your TV.

For example, your piece of wood might be 40 inches (101 cm) long and the distance between the bracket holes on your TV is 30 inches (76 cm). Subtract the bracket distance from the total wood length, which is 10 inches (25 cm). Divide that by 2, which is 5 inches (12. 5 cm). So, you’d make a hole mark 5 inches (12. 5 cm) from each end of the wood.

If you don’t know what size bracket screws to use with your TV, simply search for your TV brand and “mounting screws” or “bracket screws. ”

Make sure to find 2 studs that you can drill the mount into.