For the last seven years, our family lives in rented apartments (and before that, I was a teenager living with my parents). When we moved into our latest apartment, I was immediately annoyed by screw holes with anchors in the bathrooms. Come on, someone drilled the holes, and I have to follow that decision? And it does not make sense to drill new holes, because then I will be responsible. And the old holes will be there anyway, and they are ugly.
On the other hand, there are already screw holes in the walls. They are next to a sink and a bathtub, so they are meant for towel hooks. I can reuse the holes, and then I will have towel hooks, and I won't be responsible for drilling the walls. The only restriction that I had is to find hooks that have the same spacing between the mounting holes. So I went to a local home improvement shop and discovered that all the hooks have holes that are not suitable for me. There was only one ugly plastic hook for $15 that could match the holes in my bathroom. So I thought that before I buy a (relatively) expensive, ugly plastic hook, I will try to print one first.
The hooks
For the two vertical holes next to a sink, I used a Towel hook model by VetterFl. It's a design that I always wanted to try out: instead of an original hook, you have a crevice that securely holds any towel.
The original model had only a single mounting point. This design wouldn't cover the second hole of mine, and won't be as stable as well. Thus I increased the size of the model, and added the second hole, or more precisely: a slot. While there was enough space for a second hole, inserting a screw was a challenge. In my solution, the screw has to be inserted sideways and then rotated into the correct position. I also had to use a narrow screwdriver as it had to fit in the crevice.
Then I modeled a hook for the two horizontal holes next to a bathtub. As it was my design, I decided to take it up a notch and create a double hook. This involved plenty of OpenScad magic, including a Minkowski sum. It won't ever repeat it in the future, and I don't wish such a trial to anyone, now that I know about Fusion360.
After some time, my mother in law visited us. And she didn't have where to put her towel near the sink. So I unscrewed the fancy "hook" from the vertical holes and remixed my double hook to adopt vertical mounting points. After one day there was a new hook that could hold both our towel and the towel of my mother.
Bonus story
There were also two holes above a toilet situated horizontally about 25 centimeters apart. I have no clue about their function in the past, but I was often thinking about what can I install there. One day I stumbled upon a modular Toilet paper hexagon rack by atoomnet. I find it not only useful (remember, it's right next to a toilet), but it's also visually pleasing.
Epilog
Once you get a 3D printer, things are never going to be the same. I printed my own towel hooks for the exact needs that I had. And when the needs changed — I immediately adapted. And as we speak about changing needs… maybe I should update to a triple hook next to a bathtub because now the double hook is continuously occupied by the towels of our kids 🧒👶
