DIY Pegboard

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With so much messy building work going on around here (we’ve finally boxed in the steel beam between the kitchen & dining room and we’re doing some more work on our driveway – more on both of those projects soon!) it’s nice to occasionally take some time out and just make something fun.

As we were recently sent some new tools by the lovely people over at Ryobi (thanks, guys!) we, of course, had to take them for a proper test run! After all, there’s nothing quite like a new power tool to get us excited. So; after a quick brainstorm, this is what we came up with.

Yep, a DIY pegboard.

I’ve wanted a pegboard for as long as I can remember (and would still like another more traditional style one for all of our tools in the cellar) so it was an easy decision to try and build one ourselves.

Making it was actually surprisingly easy and you don’t need many supplies or tools to make one of your own.

This is what you’ll need to make your own DIY Pegboard:

• Plywood sheet (we used 18mm x 606mm x 1220 mm)
• Dowel (18mm) (We bought a 2.4m long one and cut it into shorter pegs – ours are all 11.4cm long)
• Circular saw
• Cordless Drill
• 18mm Flat Wood Bit
• Sandpaper (120 Grit)
• Tape measure & pencil

This is how to make a DIY pegboard:

#1 Start by cutting the main board for your pegs to size with your circular saw (or depending on where you purchase your wood, you could get it cut in store).

These are the measurements we used (we planned it around the size of the plywood board so we’d have as little waste as possible), but you can, of course, make it any size that you’d like.

We then used the offcuts to make some shelves to attach to the pegboard which we also cut to size with the circular saw.

#2 Next measure the positions of the holes for your dowels.

Our dowels are all 7cm apart (we left slightly less space at the edges of the board). We measured and marked a grid across the plywood – each intersection of the lines is where you have to drill a hole for your dowel.

#3 Now it’s time to drill the holes for your dowels. This is the trickiest part of this project as you have to drill the hole as straight as possible.

We did this part of the project together. When Jan drilled a hole I checked that he was drilling as straight and level as possible and when I was drilling, Jan checked that I was drilling as vertical as possible.

This is probably not the best way of drilling perfectly straight holes, but it worked well enough for this project.

Drilling with a powerful drill and a really sharp flat wood bit helps drill straight and clean holes.

#4 After drilling all of the holes (if you make a board as large as ours it’s 104 holes) give all of the edges a quick sand with some sandpaper to remove any rough edges. Don’t forget to sand the edges of your board and shelves, too.

If you cut the holes to the same diameter as the dowel it will be a tight fit, but it does mean that they stay firmly in place.

#5 Now all that’s left to do is clean away any pencil lines and assemble your DIY pegboard. Just stick the pegs into some of the holes, add a shelf or two and you’re done.

We decided to just lean our pegboard against the wall but you could attach it straight to the wall. Just bear in mind that it’s quite heavy even without you placing things on it.

If you want to hang the pegboard on the wall, we recommend using a french cleat. A french cleat is basically made of two angled pieces of wood. One piece is attached to the wall and the other is attached to the pegboard. You can then just slot the two cleat parts together and the pegboard will be securely attached to the wall.

We used this method to attach our DIY slatted radiator cover to the wall and it’s such an easy and effective way to hang anything heavy on a wall. You can see exactly how we made the french cleat here.

I love a project that helps me keep organised, although this one is more for decorative purposes. Now all I need is to find some more pretty items to place and hang on it!

How do you distract yourself from messy building work? Do you love pegboards as much as I do?

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