It was actually Morgan Donner who inspired me to find some means of storing tools and other fiddly bits on the wall, when I spied the assortment of tools in the background of one of her videos.
My first thought was to use pegboard, which is pretty easy to get ahold of, but I’ve used it before for things, and I just… don’t like it. It’s flimsy. The hooks spin around. And I’m less of a polka-dots, more of a stripes kind of person.
That’s when I remembered my days of merchandising at a second-hand bookstore, where I got to work a lot more with slatwall displays than you might guess. On second look, that’s probably what Morgan has back there, too. Slatwall was sounding pretty good (in theory).
I began my optimistic search for slatwall only to discover that it is a lot more expensive than I’d bargained for. (I’m not sure what I expected, exactly, but it certainly wasn’t $100+ per panel.) So, I turned to my dad–the inspiration for much of my home DIY energy–for ideas about how to make slatwall. Did he have a router jig that could carve the right kind of grooves into plywood? Was there something else I could assemble it from?
He advised me to poke around ye olde Craigslist first.
That I did.
I found a place called Carlson Fixtures, a display supplier for retailers, located a mere five miles from my new abode–and they were moving, which meant they had some extraneous old stock to get rid of.
After contacting them, I was told I could have some nice grey ones with metal inserts for $60/each, or some “dinged up” white ones (which weren’t all that bad) for $20/each–both of which were much better deals than than any hardware store had to offer.
When I was finally able to get my truck out of our snow-piled yard (we don’t have a real driveway where I was storing it, yet, but… we’ll get there), there were only a few days left before Carlson’s relocation. I assume that’s why, when I got there, they brought a pallet of slatwall over to me and told me I could have as much or as little as I wanted for $100. There were twelve (12) panels in total, so, mind racing with new ideas and a heap of bargain impulse, I took all of them. (I had been prepared to spend $120 on only two, after all.)
All parties involved were delighted–except perhaps my dear husband, who had to help me unload twelve 4’x8′ panels of thick MDF and store them somewhere when I got home.
Three of these would be mounted up in the craft room. The other nine? Well… we’ll see when we get that far.
Cutting It Down to Size
In the above photo, my hair is encrusted with powder in a fashion reminiscent of the 18th century, but it’s all sawdust. I had just finished ripping (cutting lengthwise) an inch off both the top and bottom edges of my three slatwall panels. I also cut an extra MDF board down the middle to make counter tops for my stubbified bookcases, as I’ll explain at a later date.
The craft room is on the lower level of our split-level home, so there is a ledge not-quite-halfway up the foundational exterior walls, which exists, I imagine, because of the difference in in thickness between the two materials which were used to construct the wall–chunky cinderblocks below ground level, and narrower wooden studs above.
The ledge sits at the slightly infuriating height of 46.5″ below the ceiling.
My slatwall panels were 48″ tall. Just a wee bit too big to sit nicely atop the ledge.
So I tried out one of these nifty things: a rip jig. Essentially, it’s an adjustable squared ruler that attaches to the base of a circular saw. Shara of Woodshop Diaries has a good post on how to use it.
I decided to lop off a full inch from the top and bottom edges of my slatwall, rather than taking the precise 1-1/2″ difference off of one side or the other, for a few reasons:
- The top and bottom edges of slatwall are not flat. Those edges are slatted, too, as with other tongue-and-groove wall or floor coverings, so the panels slot together nicely when mounted on top of each other. I’m not doing that kind of application here, so I’d rather the panels have clean, straight edges.
- Taking some of the height difference from both edges reduces the risk of cutting too far into the other grooves in the slatwall. The grooves are made in such a way that fixtures will hook up under the face of the board, so if I cut too far into that overhang, some of the front finish of the panel would fall off. In short: it would look weird.
- The ruler on the jig specifically says “not recommended” below the one-inch mark. Upon inspection, I probably could have set it as low as 3/4″ but at that point I might risk the blade scraping against the plastic part of the apparatus, which is likely to cause a couple different types of havoc. Best to stick to recommendations, in the case of power tools and their accessories.
- Let’s be real, here: When is any wall or ceiling ever perfectly straight and level all the way across? Most of the space between the ledge and the ceiling measured 46-1/2″ but… who knows? Sometimes it’s better to leave yourself a little extra wiggle room, just in case.
A Tale of a Rail (or Two)
This is a plan which went from genius, to acceptable, to lovely, to… woops.
Remember how I said walls and ceilings are not reliably straight or level? Well, I promptly forgot all of that in the wake of a spontaneous new idea.
I was going to mount slatwall across two perpendicular walls–that was already the plan–but since there was no ledge on the second wall, I thought: Why don’t I mount a little strip of wood along that one? With that support on the wall, it would be easier to keep the slatwall in position while I went about drilling holes in it. And I would have a solid idea of where the studs were located, just by looking at where the screws in the rail were positioned.
Good, smart Mariah, trying to make projects easier…
…and mostly managing to make more work out of the whole ordeal.
The first rail went up pretty well. The wall was long enough that it took two boards to span the total length, so I mounted one full 96″ board to the wall, and cut the second down to match the remaining measurement.
Then I realized everything was off by about 3/4″.
It would have worked out fine, but my perfectionism was going to drive me insane if I didn’t fix the issues I had discovered:
- The edge of the slatwall, as I had positioned it, was going to be 3/4″ shy of flush with the edge of a vent.
- The very end of the rail was about 3/4″ shy of a wall stud (so the end of the board was fastened only to drywall).
- I had positioned a damaged edge of the slatwall so that the 3/4″ depth of the perpendicular panel would hide that imperfection, but if I moved it over, I knew the edges of the two panels would still meet.
So, I took down the first rail. I was glad for the opportunity to fix up some of the other mistakes I had learned from putting it up. I used nicer boards. I cut the first one down so the seam between the two would be centered on a stud. I even noticed a curved spot over a knot in the wood and managed to plane it flat with some old carving tools and a good sanding.
With the second rail sturdy, gorgeous, and ready to go–and two out of three slatwall panels affixed to the wall–I set about marking up my final slatwall panel with the locations of the aforementioned vent and a soffit, which I can only guess hides part of our heating system. After using a jigsaw to carve out spaces for those obstacles, the moment of truth had arrived!
The panel did not fit.
It seemed to fit around the vent and the soffit, but Rick and I couldn’t lift the bottom edge of it over the rail. We set it down, and I placed a level on top of the rail. It might not have been perfect, but it didn’t seem atrocious enough to warrant the kind of fit discrepancy we were running into.
I looked up at the ceiling, and wondered. Held the level up to it.
Again, not atrociously off-kilter, but the ceiling possessed a slant opposite the direction the rail was leaning. Once I measured it, I realized the leveling issues of both the rail and the ceiling had shrunk the height of the space between by at least an inch.
Because I had used the level to mount the entire rail. Just the level.
What I should have done was measure down from the ceiling 46.5″ at regular intervals. Then, if I cared to level it, I should have leveled it from the lowest of those points (closest to the floor, since each point would have been the same distance from the ceiling).
So, I took down the second rail, too. Despite having gained the rest of the information I would have needed to truly do it properly the third time, I did not have the energy to rework the same project again–especially because I had been so proud of how the second rail looked.
Rick and I were able to get the final slatwall panel mounted to the wall without a rail in place. It was a bit more awkward than the first two panels had been, but we managed. The holes in the wall where the rail had been still served as convenient marks for the location of the studs, too.
Mid-Project Madness
We all get it, right? A project is going well, and going well, and it might provide a challenge here or there, but it’s a good sort of challenge–until, suddenly, it’s not.
You get tired. You take a mental sit-down, and you look at what you’ve done so far–and what you haven’t–and you wonder if you’ve wasted things: time, energy, materials, resources. Is all this going to be worth it? What did you get yourself into?
I had that moment, looking at a lot of grey, utilitarian slatwall hanging over the upended, dusty mess of my craft room. Oh, no, I thought. Does this look awful? Do I actually hate this thing that I’ve created?
It’s honestly one of my worst fears. I’m pretty sure I go through a variation of this inner torment every time I try to make something.
If and when this happens to you, it’s important to breathe. Not just anatomically, but mentally and spacially, too. Maybe you hear this all the time, but here’s a reminder: It’s absolutely okay to walk away. Put down a project, hide it, forget about it for a while.
Watch a soothing video of Rachel Maksy painting a landscape on her bedroom wall, because adults can play with (and mess up, and recreate) their own living spaces as much as they want. Very few rules actually apply.
I’d also say that it’s perfectly acceptable to think a project into the ground before tossing the shroud over it, if that’s what you need to do. That tends to be my approach to the big problems, like: What did I just do to half of my walls?
After a tired evening of dread, I woke at five in the morning to sit on the stairs and look over the craft room as a whole. There was still a lot that hadn’t been done, still a lot left to do that would, again, drastically alter the feel of the place.
I reminded myself what those things were going to be:
- Better lighting would make the whole place warm and bright.
- Counters and tabletops would balance the visual weight of the slats overwhelming the top half of the walls.
- Painting the counters and tabletops white would reflect the new lighting and break up the shadowy grey.
I also considered other ideas:
- What if I painted the slatwall a different color–a light green perhaps?
- What if I added some pretty wallpaper to the opposite side of the room, juxtaposing the utilitarian slatwall and drawing the eye away to something more decorative?
- What if I exchanged my black and clear slatwall accessories for different colors?
Once I was satisfied enough that solutions did exist, and there were plenty to choose from, I was more content to leave that part of the project alone for a while and could truly start to focus on something else.
I’m even starting to enjoy it again. Huzzah!
So, that was the harrowing tale of this slatwall adventure. There were plenty of ups and downs throughout the process, but I do think I’m going to enjoy playing with my new display fixtures. I’m excited to explore all the new possibilities!
