Category: pegboard

The ultimate garage organization checklist

Yuck. The garage. Not a very fun one to organize is it? Unfortunately it’s one of those chores that must be done, and being that it’s a long weekend you might have more time to get it done. Being that the American Home Buyer expects a garage in the single family home, it is easy to find a lot of organizing resources. I found this amazing plan to tackle your garage in BHG, and added my own ideas to it. Here is BHG’s plan for organizing your storage in the garage.

Create Task Kits. Create kits for various outdoors projects by filling 5- and 10-gallon plastic buckets with all the tools, products, and accessories you need to complete specific tasks such as car-washing, weeding, bicycle repair, and more.

Addition from me: My husband swears by this tactic and uses one of those 5-gallon bucket organizers that you can put over the bucket

Stash Sporting Gear. Fill tall kitchen trash cans with large and odd-shaped sporting gear. Drill holes in the bottom of bins if drainage is important. Stabilize containers by securing to a wall with short bungee cords.

Addition from me: Yes! get everything off the floor that you can. It makes it easier to clean the floors and stops the hazard of your garage door hitting something thus saving you from garage door opener repair. Instead of trash cans, also consider laundry baskets so you don’t have to dig down too deep to find smaller items that might have sunk to the bottom.

Organize the Trunk. Clean out your vehicle’s trunk. Toss every item that is expired or damaged. Place all trunk gear in a canvas bin or box. Make sure the container doesn’t slip by adding rubber or hook-and-loop tape to the bottom.

Addition from me: Make sure you have an emergency roadside kit in your trunk!

Tidy Up the Tools. Hang hand tools on a wall near your workbench from hooks on pegboard, magnetic board, or a wall-mount strip system. Label each tool’s spot. Put extra tools in a tool box or clear plastic boxes and store on floor underneath workbench.

Addition from me: Make sure often used tools are easiest to reach, and specialty items can be stored higher up

I’ve rounded up a bunch of images that I hope you find inspiring and help you rally the motivation to organize the garage. Once you’re done, you can take a look at garage storage guides to help you get your garage organized as can be.

The chalkboard cabinet and drawer fronts is a great idea. You could always paint yours with chalkboard paint.

A magnetic kitchen knife strip works great for holding drill bits too

Use magnetic spice containers to hold small hardware in the garage

This space has to be the prettiest garage I’ve ever seen

In the garage, bins and hooks and boxes are our friends

A rolling cart with most used cleaning supplies and tools is a great idea!
images above via BHG

Take a cue from Julia Child’s kitchen and do the same for your tools!
via Martha Stewart

To summarize, we almost all have a garage. Just check out Mississauga Real Estate to confirm. That being said, organizing it doesn’t have to be a miserable chore. The peace of mind and ease it will bring to your life makes it all worth it! Thanks to American Home Buyer, ssbhg.ca, and Canadian Doors for consulting!

October 23, 2020
Pretty organization inspiration

Ever since the birth of my first son Leo I’ve been very into organization. I always liked being organized, but it wasn’t until I was faced with the fact that we’d have to fit a child and all of his toys and gear in our tiny rancher that it became extremely beneficial. Now with our second son Beau’s arrival, it’s an absolutely vital necessity. I’ve found successful solutions over the four years that we’ve lived in the house and 2 1/2 years that we’ve had Leo. I’ve combined ideas found in books, online, and some I’ve come up with. One thing I’ve found is really important for me is not only that the system I establish works, but also that it is attractive.

While I respect the advice of organization greats like Marie Kondo, I realized that solutions like organizing things in shoe boxes has one major flaw – a shelf full of mismatched shoe boxes is not pretty, even if they do perfectly hold and sort your socks. It did not spark joy, at least for me.

One of the reasons this shelving unit looks so pretty? Matching magazine holders and a specific color palette. Granted my closet will never look like one out of a Martha Stewart magazine because I can’t discipline myself to only buy clothes in three different colors (that’s why magazine closets look SO good – notice they only use a few colors!)

The great part of of Marie Kondo’s method of using shoe boxes is that shoe boxes are free (excepting the shoes). Pretty matching containers alas, are not. So 2018 means that while I have a lot of our home organized successfully, I’ll now have to find a budget friendly way to make my organizing tools “pretty.” If anyone has any great resources for me to check out – I’d appreciate it!

All images via Britt & Co

January 5, 2018
How To: A Kitchen Pegboard Wall Organizer

As I promised a couple of weeks ago, here is a fairly-easy DIY (and very inexpensive) that can save you at least one cabinet’s worth of space. For tiny kitchens, like mine – our pan and utensil organizer is a lifesaver. It can also look good and blend into your existing kitchen aesthetic with a couple of coats of paint.

The pegboard – finished!
(I apologize for the weird look of the photos – our camera is on the fritz)

We simply didn’t have enough cabinet space to hold all of our pots and pans, and our kitchen only had one very small drawer in it. We purchased a baker’s cart, (our’s is from Ikea), which definitely helped the situation, but we still needed more storage options if we wanted easy access and organization of our most commonly used kitchen wares. I thought pegboard would be the perfect solution (Julia Child made the idea famous), and figured above the baker’s rack would be the perfect spot.

First, I wanted to see how other people had implemented a pegboard into their kitchen so I could get some tips and words of wisdom.

The below proved to be valuable resources:
• Apartment Therapy “How To: Make a Pegboard Wall Organizer“
• DIY Network “How to Install a Pegboard” (gives thorough directions on how to measure, frame, and install the board).

The Price break-down:
• Pegboard: $17.48 (We also had it cut to size – most home improvement stores provide this service
• Framing wood: Scraps leftover from a previous project
• 32 piece assorted pegboard hooks: $3.87
• Tool rack: $2.97 (See where I used it for holding measuring cups)
• Anchors: $1.98
• Screws: $1.18
• Paint: (Leftover high gloss and flat paint (I mixed them to create a finish more durable than flat, but less shiny than gloss) from when I painted the kitchen.

Also note, we did this without a drill, but it is definitely easier to use a drill than drive the screws by hand.

We started out with 2 pieces of wood to “frame” the pegboard, and a piece of white pegboard cut to the desired size. The purpose of putting the “frame” behind the pegboard is to create enough space between the wall and the pegboard to insert the various hooks. I painted the wood and the pegboard with leftover paint from when I painted the kitchen. I wanted the pegboard to blend in with the wall.

From this side angle you can see how the frame creates enough space between the wall and the pegboard.

Chris has much more patience with measuring and prep work, and is better with math, so he did the measuring to attach the frame to the pegboard. We chose to attach the frame to the pegboard, than mount it to the wall, but it might be easier to mount the frame to the wall, and then mount the pegboard to the frame.

Chris also carefully measured where to put in anchor screws so the screws in the frame would line up.

Then tighten the screws into the anchors!

Now comes the fun part – getting to arrange pots, pans, and other utensils on the pegboard!

A variety of hooks

My package of hook assortments also came with hook locks – the black piece you see over the hook, which I didn’t know about, but they are great at keeping the hook from falling out when you take a pan down.

I was lucky that the bottom of our baker’s cart’s shelves were slatted, and our pot and pan lids fit perfectly in them!

The magnetic knife strip I actually found on the curb in someone’s giveaway pile. I simply purchased screws long enough to go through the knife strip, pegboard, height of the frame, and then into the wall – and now have easy access to my knives.

What do you think? Would you ever consider a pegboard organizer in your kitchen? Do you currently have one?

November 8, 2011
A month by month plan to get your home storage organized: May is the garage

Yuck. The garage. Not a very fun one to organize is it? Unfortunately it’s one of those chores that must be done, and being that it’s a long weekend you might have more time to get it done. Here is BHG’s plan for organizing your storage in the garage.

Create Task Kits. Create kits for various outdoors projects by filling 5- and 10-gallon plastic buckets with all the tools, products, and accessories you need to complete specific tasks such as car-washing, weeding, bicycle repair, and more.

Stash Sporting Gear. Fill tall kitchen trash cans with large and odd-shaped sporting gear. Drill holes in the bottom of bins if drainage is important. Stabilize containers by securing to a wall with short bungee cords.

Organize the Trunk. Clean out your vehicle’s trunk. Toss every item that is expired or damaged. Place all trunk gear in a canvas bin or box. Make sure the container doesn’t slip by adding rubber or hook-and-loop tape to the bottom.

Tidy Up the Tools. Hang hand tools on a wall near your workbench from hooks on pegboard, magnetic board, or a wall-mount strip system. Label each tool’s spot. Put extra tools in a tool box or clear plastic boxes and store on floor underneath workbench.

I’ve rounded up a bunch of images that I hope you find inspiring and help you rally the motivation to organize the garage.

The chalkboard cabinet and drawer fronts is a great idea. You could always paint yours with chalkboard paint.

A magnetic kitchen knife strip works great for holding drill bits too

Use magnetic spice containers to hold small hardware in the garage

This space has to be the prettiest garage I’ve ever seen

In the garage, bins and hooks and boxes are our friends

A rolling cart with most used cleaning supplies and tools is a great idea!
images above via BHG

Take a cue from Julia Child’s kitchen and do the same for your tools!
via Martha Stewart

May 26, 2011