These are super simple, but something that a lot of home cooks never think about.  And sometimes it’s the simplest things that make your workflow in the kitchen so much easier.

I have two types of peg racks in my kitchen:  Spices and Tools.

Spices

Having spices close at hand when cooking is vital. While my doorway pantry is good for storing larger quantities of herbs and spice, it’s 3 meters away, on the other side of the kitchen.  My small spice racks are an arm’s reach from the stove, in the corner where the cutting board and counter top meet.

There are 38 jars, holding at least enough ingredient for one or two meals.  They need to be replenished from the cupboard and pantry stores frequently, but it’s worth it for the convenience of having them at hand while cooking.

Construction is very simple–with a little secret.

Each board is just a 1×6 oak board with a routered edge[1].  1″ brass screws are set at regular points–with the exception of two on each board. Those are actually 2″ screws that go into plastic anchors in the plaster walls. They hold the racks securely to the walls, while looking just like the rest of the “pegs”.

Tools

This one is a little less elegant, but arguably more useful (and I’d do it a little different if I were to redo it).

This was one of the first things I installed in my kitchen.  Not everyone is going to have space above their stove to install a tool rack. But if you do, this is an exceptional use of the space.

For most of my life, the utensils I needed to cook with were stuffed in a drawer.  When I moved into my house and saw the empty space above the stove I knew exactly what to do with it. There are 16 pegs (square nails) on the board, and the tools that hang on them change as my cooking needs–and new utensils–evolve.

The installation is… inelegant.  It’s just screwed to the wall with 2 drywall screws that are blatantly visible.

But it’s not there to be “pretty”, it’s there to be useful.  When doing projects it’s good to put things into perspective and understand that sometimes “okay, useful, and now” is superior to “beautiful and somewhere down the road”.

Adding to the “useful, but pretty”:  below the utensil rack is a tiny shelf on which sits a cast-iron griddle. The shelf is just a 1×4 length of oak with a step on it[2]. The cast-iron griddle doesn’t get used much, but it’s a great place for holding recipes with the aid of magnetic “push pins”.

Function over Form

Despite what the people on YouTube say, not everything you build has to be gorgeous and complicated.  If some scrap wood and handful of nails does what you need done… that’s great!

If you want to make things that are a little bit more pleasing to the eye–and have the time and resources to do so–step up and make it happen.

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[1] If I was to do it over, I wouldn’t use an ogee profile.  I’d do something more in line with the craftsman aesthetic of the house.

[2] Set the table saw gate to 5/8″ from the blade, and 2.5″ height.  Run the board through in a vertical position.  Put the uncut part to the front of the shelf, and it creates a lip that doesn’t let the griddle slide forward.

For some very odd reason, the tiny bathroom on the first floor of my house had 2 entrances–one from (what has become) my office, and one from the kitchen.  The bathroom is about 8’x8′. It certainly doesn’t need 2 doors.

So, right when I moved in, I boarded up the door from the kitchen, and tossed in some quick shelves.  Over time, it became an integral part of my kitchen storage, so I decided to do it right.

First and foremost, I got pulled off the cheap (second-hand) pine framing with a bazillion coats of cheap white paint, and replaced them with oak cut in the clean craftsman style that I’m using throughout the house.

The shelves were set to heights that match the bottles that sit on them.  Every one of the bottles is reused from something that would have been thrown away.

• 2nd row from the top is mostly tequila bottles. I had been using scotch bottles (you can see a few on the left), but the tequila bottle have the same volume with a narrower profile. They hold grains.
• The row below that is square bottles from sesame oil. The left side are spices, the right side are herbs.
• Below that are 4 green bottles with booze (leftovers that weren’t drunk) on the left, and clear bottle of dried herbs on the right (most are empty now, because I don’t have a garden this year).
• The penultimate row is large scotch bottles with various types of rice on the right.  On the left are sesame seeds and Sichuan chili flakes to make chili oil.
• The bottom shelf are tubes from scotch. They hold a range of pasta (listed on the white labels)

On the baseboard is an antique lock mechanism that I don’t have a key for.  So.. it’s just a fun decoration that gets a gizmo out of the drawers in my workshop.

This is an amazingly useful adaptation to to a useless doorway, and gets used pretty much every time I cook.  Trying to store all of that stuff elsewhere would be a logistical nightmare.

This is one of the most-used projects in my kitchen.  Made from century red oak, it’s a simple, yet convenient, way to hold my knives while keeping precious counter space clear.

The construction is a bit deceiving.  The screws don’t hold the unit onto the wall–they don’t even go all the way through.  The two vertical pieces are glued to the wall, and that’s what holds it up.  The screws simply attach the horizontal piece (the actual rack) to the verticals.  This way, as I purchase new knives, I can remove the horizontal, cut a new groove, and replace it.  By doing it this way, I’m not causing any wear on holes into the plaster.

The two paring knives are handle-heavy, and don’t sit well.  That issue was solved by creating a “bar” out of some copper wire I have (old power lines from behind my house).  This allows them to rest against the bar instead of falling out.

The slot for the boning knife (the long thin one) needed to be chiseled out at an angle because of the shape of the handle (it wants to tip forward, out of the rack).  Unfortunately, when I was building this, I only had my old chisels–which had been horribly misused while I was out of the country, and completely dulled/chipped.  That slot needs some work now that I’ve replaced the chisels.