Easy DIY Framed Pegboard

When we remodeled my son's room this Fall as he started Kindergarten, we added a large, homemade pegboard on the wall by his desk. 

I measured the wall space and headed to our local Home Depot. I found a long sheet of raw pegboard and a store employee cut it to my specifications: 40 inches long and 24 inches wide. 

Originally, I tried painting the raw pegboard using spray primer and spray paint. That method did not work for me.  I wasn't getting good coverage. 

I switched to a foam roller and that worked perfectly. I was originally worried about paint getting trapped in the pegboard holes but that wasn't an issue at all with the foam roller. 

I didn't need much paint at all. I purchased a color sample and had it customized to the color I choose: Behr Powdered Snow. 

While at Home Depot, we picked up some brick moulding to frame the pegboard. This is nice moulding typically used to frame windows and doors. It looked great, was priced right and was already primed. After cutting the moulding to perfectly fit the pegboard, we added a coat of paint. 

We built the frame around the pegboard as we hung it.  First we identified where we wanted to bottom of the pegboard to be, found the wall studs and nailed in the bottom moulding.  We used a level to make sure we had frame straight. 

Next, we slipped the pegboard into the bottom moulding, then added the other pieces of moulding around the pegboard to complete the framing. 

We found some fun accessories for the pegboard at Ikea and added a wire basket and a rail holding 3 buckets.  

The wire basket is attached with peghooks but the rail is screwed in permanently. The buckets are removable. 

My son loves to paint, draw and color so we use the pegboard primarily to hold his art supplies. I hung a clipboard on the pegboard so we would have a place to display his artwork. This particular clipboard had metal tab with a hole - perfect for a pegboard hook. The clipboard makes it easy to change the artwork he displays. 

If you have any questions about this project, I'll be happy to answer them in the comment section below. Thanks for stopping by!

DIY Chalkboard Train Table

For Christmas last year, I wanted to get my son a train table but quickly discovered that nice ones were quite expensive. 

After looking around, we thought it would be easy enough to make our own. And it was.  We decided to make a versatile table with a chalkboard top for drawing and writing when it wasn't used for trains. 

The total cost for this table was less than $15, which gave us plenty of money leftover for wood tracks, trains and accessories.

We happened to have this table base, which we had purchased at a yard sale for $5.  It has a wood insert (not shown) to make a table. The trouble was that there wasn't enough room inside the confines of the table for a figure 8 train track.

With some basic woodworking skills, we were able to make a table to fit on top of the base. We made it a rectangle, measuring approximately 40 x 48 inches. 

After we put together the tabletop, we gave it a couple of coats of chalkboard paint and we were ready for the train set. 

We purchased the Figure 8 Train Track at Target. It is the Circo brand and is interchangeable with other brands of wood track. The trains and accessories are a mixture of Thomas, Brio and Circo. 

The table and trains are hands down my son's favorite toy.

If you have any questions about how to make the table, feel free to post questions in the comments. Thanks for stopping by!