It rained all of last week, and that totally spoiled my plan to finish moving the massive pile of soil in my driveway. And this week I’ve been sick, so plans to move all of the dirt in the sunshine didn’t really materialize either. Excuses, excuses. Although, all of this time spent sitting around and blowing my nose did give me a bit of extra time to brainstorm the usage of a new multi-pack of fancy pegs and baskets for the office pegboard.
The room is officially no longer a closet. It’s a perfectly fine workspace, except that without pegs on the pegboard, too much stuff had been accumulating on the desk. The 48-piece package I scooped up from Home Depot had a lot of tool-intended pieces, and I wasn’t sure how much would translate to office efficiency, but still wanted to give it a try. At under $8 the hooks and $9 for a rubber-coated trio of baskets, I wasn’t going to complain if a few pieces didn’t work out. I was truthfully expecting to pay much more based on some amazon.com window shopping, so my little Home Depot finds were pleasing.
Luckily, there were lots of hooks in the assortment. Hooks, I can do stuff with. In a multitude of sizes, too.
But there were other things… I could only guess they are meant to hold screw drivers and drills? Help a girl out if you know the actual purpose. I imagine there’s something that could be done to make them office-friendly, but I put them aside for now so that we can use them with tools in the basement or garage eventually.
Sidenote: Try and wrap your brain around that photo’s crazy depth of field. Playing with a new lens for the Rebel, which is why the first few photos are a little wonky.
Hung with intent to be functional (and keep stuff directly off the working surface), the pegboard has officially taken every last piece of junk off the desktop. This is the cleanest and most organized the whole room has been in weeks. And I just noticed that Pete wedged something under the front right leg to stop a little wobbily. FTW, dude.
Want a closer-up viewpoint of how I’ve been putting the hooks through their paces? I’ll go through the pegboard left-to-right.
- From the upper left, clockwise: We have an assortment of unframed posters, Julia-drawings, and random stickers. Clipping them up with one of the Missoni bulldog clips and looping it on a hook keeps all those papers off the ground and more visible (so we remember to do something with them).
- Also on hooks, I mounted a recycled paper bulletin board for basic functionality and to mix up the textures hanging in front of my face.
- In the upper right, I balanced my business stamp on two braces. Easy access.
- I hung one the smallest of the baskets on the pegboard with intention of holding all of our miscellaneous business cards. Because not all of my contacts are saved in my computer. Yet.
- Vintage green lamp. With no bulb. And no shade. It will eventually be useful for task lighting.
- I kept the unused hooks accessible in a little cluster on the lower part of the pegboard. Because I want them to be handy when I need one.
- Oh, and there’s some driftwood in the corner. No real reason why. It may be used for future projects… or for collecting dust.
- Right in front of my face, I have an IKEA magnetic board balanced on braces. It could also be hung on hooks easily, and will be if I ever make a custom shelf to sit there. Like a bulletin board, I use the magnet board for quickly saving magazine trimmings, cards, and other things that I might be needing to reference, like phone numbers, or my Home Depot shopping list.
- In that large basket is a giant sheep. I’m not sure why I haven’t swapped it out yet; it’s an Anthropologie catalogue image that was framed while this was included in the stairwell collage during in the summer. It’s really acting as a paper weight for a stack of folders filled with paperwork. Because without a paperweight (and without having formal filing cabinets yet) they tumble into my face too often.
- In the smaller basket, I’ve collected all of my original paint chips into one place. Always handy, like when you’re shopping online instead of writing and need to compare the office ceiling color to a digital swatch of carpet.
- I’m keeping markers and writing utencils in that vintage round wooden cup, the intended use of which I can’t be sure of, but I once saw someone on etsy marketing it as a pencil cup. And that seems fitting. It was salvaged from Grandma’s attic a few years ago.
- The biggest thing on the right side of the pegboard is a piece of framed art. Like the sheep, it also lived in the stairwell back when I had a wall collage. Hooked right on, I like the pop of color it brings.
- Right along the top of that frame, I’m displaying Pete’s childhood collection of Testors model paints (that we rediscovered when clearing out his parent’s attic). I’d love to assemble them in a shadowbox someday, but today wasn’t the day.
- In a separate utencil cup, I keep colored pencils and markers available for the occasional sketching. Also, that little copper pot from Anthropologie is still empty; it’s cute, but it may end up elsewhere.
- I like to have a clipboard handy if I’m working at the basement workbench or in the backyard, so keeping one on a hook has been convenient (and one less thing I’m constantly in search of). Shown on that graph paper is a future little gardening project that’s still in the Sharpie phases of development.
How about that? Pegboard happiness + organizational satisfaction.
P.S. I’ve been playing more and more with Gimp, a totally free photo editing software. I’m no photoshop pro, but this is a good alternative (considering it’s free). It generally gets the job done without too much guesswork. Try it out here if you’re looking for a new toy. I’d give it a thumbs-up for handling an inordinate amount of arrows.
4 Comments
Organized chaos. Love it. And the sheep makes me giggle every time, hehe.
Also — your painted chair still holding up well? I’ve been keeping an eye out for one like it for our office!
Thanks Elisa! The chair is doing quite well. The only sign of wear is on one small area of the seat where Pete keeps a tough aluma-wallet in his back pocket. Really, just a small chip in the paint like it dug in weird one time. Otherwise, it’s awesome. Super comfy, butt conforming.
I just came across your website today and have been reading it non-stop ever since. I just love your design aesthetic and DIY prowess.
Also, just wanted to let you know that your pencil holder could be a peanut holder. My grandparents have one and still use it to this day. It comes with a little wood spoon as well.
Peanut holder! That’s so cute, I never envisioned it being used like that until now. Thanks for stopping by, I’m glad you’re enjoying it!