painted pegboard love

So, I suppose it's a good problem to have, but when our new set of cookware arrived, we realized the one kitchen cabinet that was housing our cookware wasn't going to cut it anymore. The cabinet door would barely close, and that was only if you were really strategic about fitting the pots and lids in just the right way. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm far too anal about organization to let that be the case. A few days later, the light clicked - a pegboard wall!

:: Julia Child's kitchen, image courtesy of The Kitchen Designer, also a great article on Julia Child's kitchen ::

With recent Julie & Julia inspiration and reinforcement from Design*Sponge, I was convinced this would be a perfect solution. I love the practicality and the sense of utilitarianism that comes from a pegboard wall. I mean, isn't that really what a kitchen is all about? At least a kitchen where people cook? We have a wall in our kitchen that was completely underutilized and for the most part, wasted space. No longer, my friends.

Here's the before photo. See? Just a towel rack and a cute Charley Harper print (but that could find another home). A door opens right in front of that wall, so certainly no furniture could go there. We have a very awkwardly laid out kitchen, but it's ours and I love it. Some day it'll get a big overhaul, but not today. Today was about a dash of creativity and a bunch of DIY.

Because of the door and the tight space, we had to remove the wainscoting. Delicately... very delicately. This also made the wall one flat plane for easy installation of the pegboard. No need to paint the rest of the wall; the shadow the pegboard casts makes the back wall color indistinguishable.

We measured - measured again - made our cuts and installed the framing. You need the pegboard to stick out from the wall at least 1" in order for the pegs to maneuver properly. Seems like common sense, but I see how it could be an easy thing to forget. The old owners of our house did - we've got mostly unusable pegboard in the basement stairwell... oops.

Sam supervises and gives us plenty of kisses to counteract the inevitable swearing that comes with any home project. :-)

After cutting out a little jig-jag where our countertop extends (again, more measuring), we rough fit the pegboard. Since owning a home and doing mini projects like this one, we've learned to have the patience to always measure twice! Yay, a perfect fit! We spent $2 more on the white tempered pegboard, which saved me from having to prime it first.

Then followed two coats of paint. We stuck with the same sage green that was in the rest of the kitchen for a seamless look. I thought about using some fun, bright color, but hey, we already had the sage green and I like it, so sage green it was. Then we installed it... Here's where we ran into our first big snag. Screws did not work. Nope. They chewed up the pegboard as the screw went in, leaving a gnarly mess of particle all around the screw.... ew. I suppose we could have screwed into the pegboard holes, but we didn't want to compromise the security and strength of the pegboard.... those pots are heavy! Instead, we nailed in (ok, I only did 1, Jay did the rest) about a million and one paneling nails. These were great and sit nice and flush. Again, we used A LOT to ensure strength. I just went through and dabbed over the nail heads with paint and then rolled on one more coat for good measure... And here's the finished product!

We have a pretty kitschy 1950's kitchen (notice that lovely scalloping over the kitchen sink?), so the pegboard fits in perfectly I think. Probably wouldn't fit in so well if we had a new, contemporary, clean-lined stainless steel of a kitchen. Now our pots and pans (and other kitchen accoutrement) have a happy home and a place to proudly display their wear and hard work. This was a cheap and easy DIY project and I am still swooning over the results. If you want a great step-by-step DIY tutorial for a painted kitchen pegboard check out this post at the haystack needle.