All I wanted to do was hang some curtains. I've got a cheap mounting kit from Target, with screws and plastic anchors and I started drilling a 3/16" hole in the wall. I got about half an inch in with no problem and then I hit something hard. It doesn't feel like metal, but then I have limited experience with these sorts of things. I'm drilling
close to the window, so I assume I may have hit wood of some kind. The drill bit got stuck at first and I had to switch it to drill in reverse to get it out. I'm just using a basic black and decker drill/driver set that claims to be multipurpose for wood/metal/plastic.
I'm hesitant to push harder and keep drilling because I have no idea what I'm dealing with. There are no electrical plugs on this wall, but there is a baseboard heating unit beneath the window. I think I'm working with plaster and lathe walls, since it's a very old triple-decker home outside of Boston, built around 1900.
Here's what a crawl space on my floor looks like; the wall I'm drilling into is the one on the far end. The walls are
uneven in places, like they were plastered over something. I understand that it can be quite difficult to locate studs in plaster walls, but I've hit something that won't give easily, and now I'm stumped as to how to proceed.
A tenant at some point previously had screwed a mounting bracket into the wood frame moulding of the window (visible in the first link), which made me want to pull my hair out because it's the only nice window frame in the whole apartment. I was tempted to just use that, but the whole setup looks incredibly flimsy - they only secured it with one screw, and even the rod itself looks pretty fragile.
Also, to cover up these holes, can I just use spackle?
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