An Ode to Pegboard

It’s not the prettiest stuff in the world, but then, it doesn’t have to be. It’s so darned handy for storage that you’d have to go a very long way to beat it. Consider: it comes in different weights for different purposes, depending on how heavy its duties are. If it has to bear up under the weight of heavy tools, get the stronger stuff with the tough hangers. If all you’re going to use it for is hanging sewing tools and graphic design tools, get the lightweight stuff and the lightweight hangers.

Speaking of sewing supplies, chances are you’re sewing in the house and some ugly (there’s no denying it) pegboard is going to mess up your decorating scheme. Not to worry.

Step 1. Go to a thrift store, yard sale, or whatever, and buy a cheap, ugly painting with a decent frame.

Step 2. Throw out the painting but keep the frame.

Step 3. Cut a piece of pegboard to fit the frame. (Maybe you should do this before you throw out the painting so you can use it as a template.)

Step 4. Paint the frame any color you like. Paint or wallpaper the pegboard to go with the frame.

Step 5. If you have wallpapered the pegboard, turn it upside-down so the pegboard shows. Lay on top everything you want to hang on it—backwards. Position each item right below the holes you expect to hang it from. By the way, you’ve already got the little hanger thingies, don’t you? So, poke as many little holes through the wallpaper as the little hooky-thingie needs, one, or two, or three, or whatever. Just make the holes big enough to see from the wallpaper side.

Step 6. Put the frame on, and hang your ‘painting’. At this point it’s more of an ‘installation’, wouldn’t you say? Put your little hooky-thingies in, and hang your tools. How cool is that?

Now the garage is a different story. If you wallpaper the pegboard in the garage we’ll have to cart you out to the place where they keep the padded cells. But pegboard is even handier in the garage. You can even use the stuff for cabinet doors in the garage and double your storage capacity. Do you know the part about figuring out the perfect location for every tool and then hanging it and tracing an outline of it right on the pegboard—in marker? That’s so the kids can help you put stuff away without even having to know what it is. And, so you can tell when there’s something missing.

Try to buy your pegboard and hanger-thingies at a real hardware store, one that has hundreds of bins of single items and where people actually have a clue. Corporate stores tend to sell stuff in vacuum-formed plastic packages on cardboard hangers in predetermined quantities that are either too many or too few. Too much packaging, and your money leaves your community. Support your local independent hardware store if you’re lucky enough to have one. And keep thinking up uses for pegboard!

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