How to Build a DIY Giant Pegboard Wall

ByChelsea @ Making Manzanita Updated on DIY, Painting, Wall Decor, Woodworking
Do you need more storage for your office & craft supplies? This giant plywood pegboard DIY turned out so well. The unique abstract color blocks give a practical solution a little personality!

Pegboards are a really practical solution to providing more storage without taking up any more space. Because this is mounted on the wall, it gives the room a little more interest, safely stores those essential craft items out of reach from little hands, and keeps the clutter at bay!

This giant pegboard has totally changed my craft storage game! It was the perfect solution for adding some visual interest and storage to the walls during our home office makeover.

Painted pegboard wall with items stored and hanging with overlay text that says pegboard wall: Fun storage option

Table of Contents

Click here to see how our home office space turned out!

Want to see more of our home office makeover?

BEFORE PICTURE

A picture of a cluttered room willed with random items like workout equipment, and office chair, and construction tools. A man stands on a step stool attaching wood to the ceiling.

You’ll see I decided to paint our pegboard, but if you are going to minimal distraction, feel free to leave it as your blank space for organizing. Of course, the designs and paint options are limitless should you choose that route.

A project like this one would be ideal for kids rooms, home offices, workshops, craft rooms, etcetera! 

Giant Pegboard Wall Video Tutorial

We summed the whole process up in a video tutorial as well as a written out step by step tutorial!

If you love DIY videos, be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you don’t miss the next one!

This shiplap ceiling tutorial also contains affiliate links, but nothing that I wouldn’t recommend wholeheartedly. Read my full disclosure here.

Supplies & tools needed for giant pegboard wall project:

How to Build & Install a Giant Pegboard Wall: Step-by-Step

A large MDF pegboard panel lays on a workbench in the garage.

Step 1. Mark the plywood board.

We grabbed an MDF pegboard panel to use as a template on our large sheet of plywood.

This made the process of marking the plywood quick and easy, so felt like it was worth the $17 on the pegboard. If you didn’t want to spend the money, you could just measure out the marks on your plywood instead.

Clamp the pegboard panel and plywood board together. Then, using the PDF pegboard panel as a guide, measure the spacing for the holes on your pegboard and mark with a Sharpie.

We wanted our dowels to be 6 inches apart, we so counted out every 6th hole on the pegboard, where the holes are 1 inch apart.

Using a level and Sharpie marker to draw lines along MDG pegboard.
Using a sharpie marker to mark pegboard holes, where we will drill and insert dowel rods.

Step 2. Drill the holes for the dowels.

Remove the pegboard panel and then start by drilling pilot holes on each of the marks. 

Using a hand drill to drill pilot holes into panel wood.
Using a drill guide for larger bore holes to insert dowel rods into our pegboard wall.

What is drilling a pilot hole?

This is basically “predrilling” the screw holes. A pilot hole is a small hole drilled into the material, which reduces the likelihood of the plywood splitting or splintering during the real thing.

The pilot hole should be the same depth as the length of your screw or nail. It’s not 100% necessary, but it can save a lot of heartache in the long run.

Learn more about pilot holes here!

When the pilot holes are complete, it’s time to drill the peg holes. 

This is where a drill guide comes in handy. Using a drill guide will ensure each hole is straight. Otherwise, if your drill isn’t held perfectly straight – it would be very noticeable when the dowels were added. It simply attaches to your drill and gives you perfectly straight holes every time.

Our giant pegboard wall is in progress! The plywood has large holes drilled through, with sawdust spread over the surface.

As you see in the video, we began drilling very slowly to prevent chipping the plywood. Our pilot holes helped, too.

Then after the first few layers of plywood veneer, you can increase the speed of the drill. 

Using an orbital sander to sand down the surface of our pegboard wall, after drilling the pegboard holes.

After drilling, lightly sand the plywood down to smooth out any rough edges with an orbital sander and fine grit sandpaper.

Step 3. Cut the dowels.

Because we used a 1-inch drill bit to drill the peg holes, so we are also using 1 inch dowel rods.

Using a miter saw to cut down the dowel rods that we'll be using in our giant pegboard wall.

We cut these with the miter saw to be about 8 inches long, so they can be sturdy enough to support the items we hang and hold on the shelves, which we cut to 6 inches deep. Then, we sanded to smooth the edges on the ends of the dowel slightly.

Using an orbital sander to sand smooth the cut edges of the dowel rods for our giant pegboard wall.

Be careful to not sand the sides of your dowel, however, because you’ll make them too small for the holes drilled, which will make them sag when inserted into the peg holes. (We learned the hard way on this one!… Watch the video tutorial above for more details).

Furring strips for french cleats, which will be used to hang our giant pegboard wall.
A blank wall, painted with a dark navy paint color, and one installed french cleat, where our giant pegboard wall will hang.

Step 4. Hang the giant pegboard.

We used a French cleat to hang the giant pegboard on the wall.

We made this French cleat ourselves, which you can do by angling your table saw to make an angeled cut into a furring strip.

You can also purchase a large metal french cleat like this if you prefer.

What is a French cleat?

A French cleat is a fancy name for a piece of plywood or metal that secures a bulky or heavy object to a wall. 

Typically, these are used in pairs: one attached to the wall and a matching edge cut into, or, in this case, attached to the object you are hanging. Both pieces have a 30-45 degree slope, so they “hold onto” each other and secure the object in place.

A closeup look at the pair of french cleats holding up the installed pegboard wall in our home office area.
A closer look at the french cleat detail for how to hang the pegboard on the wall

When you are attaching the cleat to the pegboard, glue it to the pegboard with wood glue, and then secure it with 1-inch brad nails & a brad nailer.

When you attach the other cleat to the wall, make sure you are nailing directly into the studs for extra security. Use a finish nailer and 2-inch finish nails. Then, slide the pegboard onto the cleat on the wall.

Logan hangs the giant pegboard wall on the french cleats, while our kids watch their father work.

Now you have a great place to store and hang all kinds of items! From here, you could leave the pegboard as is or paint it. Totally up to you.

If you are skipping the painting process, go ahead and add your dowel rods according to what you are hanging where.

Using string and a pencil to create a circle stencil on the bare pegboard wood, creating a desing.
Using a paint brush and a teal blue paint to paint the bare wood of our giant pegboard wall.

Step 5. Paint the giant pegboard (optional).

I wanted to jazz up our pegboard a little with some fun colors and shapes. I created a semi-circle on the right side of the board, a big panel stripe across the top, then an arch on the left side of the board.

To do this, tape a piece of string to the edge of the board and tie the other end of the string to a pencil. Hold the string taut and draw a semi-circle line across the board.

For more on this method, you can check out this post about how to paint an arch. I used the same approach.

I used the same method for the arch on the left side.

For the big stripe, I used a level for the straight line. 

Holding up a roll of frog tape - the best tool for painting clean lines and sections - in front of our hanging giant pegboard wall.

Before you begin painting, make sure you tape your different shapes off with FrogTape. Really press the tape down with a credit card so the paint doesn’t bleed under the tape.

Another way to prevent the paint from bleeding is to paint towards the FrogTape line – instead of painting along the tape line. Check out my other painter’s tape tips and tricks here!

For my circular shapes, I used an angled brush to carefully paint along the curves.

Painting a semi-circle design in dark teal blue paint on the giant pegboard wall.

When you are done painting, remove the painter’s tape immediately, pulling at a 45-degree angle. Do not wait for the paint to dry!

Removing painters tape from our freshly painted pegboard wall.

Step 6. Arrange your pegboard wall & shelves.

After the paint has dried, you can begin adding your dowels and arrange them in a design that works for you.

For the shelves, we used plywood and cut it with the table saw so they were 6″ deep. For the width, we cut them so they had 2-3″ of overhang on each side of the dowels.

Installing the dowel rods in various positions to create shelves on the giant pegboard wall.
Long and short dowel rods installed in various positions on our giant pegboard wall, where we'll be installing shelves for organization.
A look at our completed giant pegboard wall, painted, with shelves installed, and adorned with various items, craft supplies, and more.

I used a combination of shorter for hanging small items and longer pegs for supporting small shelves.

A closer look at our giant pegboard wall, with items hanging from dowel rods and shelves installed, holding various crafting supplies and other miscellaneous items.

The shelves are perfect for storage for craft ribbons, paints, and yarn.

Shorter dowel rods on the giant pegboard wall hold DIY supplies like a paint colors sample book, paint brushes, crafting supplies, and tape.

Now, I can easily access any tool I need for crafts, DIY projects, and kid’s art projects.

Our giant pegboard wall is completed, painted with fun shapes and patterns, and styled with shelves and pegs to hold crafting supplies and other storage

It doesn’t have to be 100% functional. Feel free to add items that show your own style and spark inspiration!

A look at one section of our giant pegboard wall, painted with a blue semi-circle, with craft supplies hanging neatly from dowels.

Adding additional storage for craft supplies doesn’t have to be boring or add bulk to your space. A giant pegboard can do wonders for your clutter!

A quick and easy DIY project like this one will give your space the style and functionality it needs!

click here to see our home office room reveal and all the sources linked
Our completed giant pegboard wall hangs with neatly organized and styled crafting supplies hanging from dowel rods.
Our completed, painted giant pegboard wall hangs, styled with craft supplies and decor organized on dowel rod pegs and shelves. Text overlay reads

Where you would add a giant pegboard wall in your home?

Let me know in the comments below!

How To Build A DIY Giant Pegboard Wall

How To Build A DIY Giant Pegboard Wall

Active Time: 1 day
Total Time: 1 day
Difficulty: Intermediate
Estimated Cost: $240

This giant pegboard wall is an easy and stylish way to add some organization to a room. Learn how to build and install a DIY pegboard wall with easy step-by-step directions.

Materials

Tools

Instructions

  1. Mark plywood board. We used the MDF pegboard as a template on our large sheet of plywood. Clamp the pegboard panel to the plywood and mark the holes you want to drill with a Sharpie. We spaced ours out 6" so we marked every 6th hole.
  2. Drill holes for the dowels. Start with a small pilot hole and then use the forstner bit and the drill guide to create the 1" holes. Begin drilling very slowly to prevent the plywood from chipping out. After drilling, lightly sand plywood.
  3. Cut the dowels down to size. We cut them to 8 inches for our 6" deep shelves.
  4. Hang the giant pegboard on the wall with a French cleat. You can make the french cleat yourself or buy a premade one like this. If you make it yourself, attach it to the back your plywood with wood glue and 1 inch brad nails. When you attach the other side of the cleat to the wall, be sure you nail into studs and use 2 inch finish nails. Then slide the pegboard onto the cleat on the wall.
  5. Paint the giant pegboard (optional).
  6. Arrange the pegboard shelves.

Did you make this project?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram

© Chelsea @ Making Manzanita
Project Type: Wall Decor / Category: DIY
Chelsea @ Making Manzanita

Chelsea is the founder of Making Manzanita - a DIY and renovation blog - where it's all about making your house a home you love one DIY at a time. Chelsea and her husband, Logan, have been renovating homes since 2015 and have seen the sweat equity pay off. They enjoy teaching readers how to renovate with confidence. As an influencer, Chelsea has collaborated with brands like The Home Depot, Etsy, Behr Paint, DAP Products, Walmart, Frog-Tape, and Kreg Tools. Making Manzanita has participated in One Room Challenge and was a finalist in the Fall 2019 Jeffrey Court Renovation Challenge.

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23 Comments

  2. Planning to mount smth similar to the wall. Judging by the size your plywood board is quiet heavy. Do you experience any problems with your french cleat solution to mounting pegboard? A bit worried that it won’t hold in my case=)

    Reply

    1. The french cleat is a great way to hold really heavy items! Be sure to have the cleat screwed into the studs with long screws that go all the way into the stud. We also added small “spacers” down near the bottom of the pegboard and nailed those in with finish nails at the location of studs. That helps hold a little of the weight as well. We haven’t had any issues with our pegboards and the weight. Note that we used 1/2″ plywood for the pegboard instead of 3/4″ to make it a little lighter.

      Reply

  3. I’ve been waiting to try this and think I’m finally ready! Thanks for the tutorial / video! Now that you’ve had it up and have been using it … any regrets not using the thicker plywood or having it mounted further out from wall? I want to possibly hang heavier things off of it (school backpacks???) and thinking thicker may be the way to go.

    Reply

    1. Great questions. If I were to do this project again, I would do it…the exact same way, haha! It’s holding up great. I don’t think thicker is necessary, it would just make it heavier hanging on your wall. These dowels are strong enough to hold even heavier things.

      Reply

  4. Wow. That dark colour circle is so beautiful I’d paint the entire board that colour if i could build such a thing. It would be against a lighter coloured wall of course.
    Or maybe the entire walls could be pegboards so this way I don’t have to worry about stripping any wallpaper. 😉

    Reply

  5. This is amazing, and looks like it’ll be just the thing for my spare bedroom to craft studio renovation. Where did you get your leather slings from – are these also a DIY?

    Reply

  7. Hi Chelsea,
    Love the pegboard! I just want to verify what the thickness is on your pegboard. The materials list shows 1/“ 4×8 plywood? I saw in one of your responses, you indicated you used 1/2” plywood, but the plywood in the video looks way thicker than 1/2”? Would you please confirm the thickness you used?
    Thank you!

    Reply
  9. Pingback: 26 Unique DIY Wall Shelf Ideas For Home - Craftsy

  10. Curious how snug the pegs are. Working on this currently and it seems like the holes are just a bit lose compared to the dowls before any sanding. Drill bit is 1″ as are dowls and guide is straight.

    Reply

    1. Yes, we ran into that too when we sanded them too much. We mentioned in the post” be careful to not sand the sides of your dowel, however, because you’ll make them too small for the holes drilled, which will make them sag when inserted into the peg holes. (We learned the hard way on this one!… Watch the video tutorial above for more details).”

      Reply

  11. Curious how snug the pegs are. Working on this currently and it seems like the holes are just a bit lose compared to the dowls before any sanding. Drill bit is 1″ as are dowls and guide is straight.

    Reply

    1. Yes, we ran into that too when we sanded them too much. We mentioned in the post” be careful to not sand the sides of your dowel, however, because you’ll make them too small for the holes drilled, which will make them sag when inserted into the peg holes. (We learned the hard way on this one!… Watch the video tutorial above for more details).”

      Reply