When it comes to vintage kitchens — Julia Child’s kitchen is one of the most famous. And it wasn’t a fancy schmancy designer confection — it was a real kitchen. A cook’s kitchen. One of its most memorable features: Julia Child’s very practical — and very affordable — use of pegboard to keep her pots, pans and utensils close at hand. Quick! Grab the wisk! Can’t burn the beurre blanc!
Pegboard and vintage kitchens work wonderfully together — we spotted a Julia-Child-esque setup in Kristin and Paul’s charming home. Since vintage kitchens sometimes have limited storage space, employing a section of pegboard — which can be found easily and cheaply — provides the perfect way to use vertical wall space for storage. Pegboard takes up much less space than a cabinet, shelf or traditional pot rack, making it ideal for tight or odd shaped areas. It can also be painted any color, allowing it to be matched to surrounding walls or painted an accent color to make a great backdrop to spotlight your collection of vintage pans.
If your kitchen is more mid century modern, but you still like the idea of being able to display your prized pots, perhaps a more minimal wall display, like Doug created in his retro modern kitchen, is more your speed. Here we get the same storage benefit and visual appeal as Julia Child’s pegboard set up, but with a modern twist. An added bonus — pots, pans and colanders are in easy reach. No more digging around in the clattering mess that is your current pot cabinet.
Jody says
Our pegboard doesn’t have pots and pans, but it has all of our most-used utensils. I painted it orange, with large pink dots in a variety of shades. With all the utensils in the foreground, it’s much less noisy that it sounds, and adds a great color pop to our submarine-gray steel cabinet kitchen!
Mid-Century Mick says
How FUNNY that you posted this Pam! I’m just about to move into my next place, a teeny-tiny-condo and I’d already set my heart on doing a rendition of Julia Child’s pegboard pot wall – complete with the same blue-green color that she used! I also just recently scored an a-MAZ-ing find at a local thrift store: a complete set of barely used RevereWare pots & pans, which I can’t wait to hang! Thanks for another Monday morning smile, and a good read! (ps: Laurel: “Bar Keepers Friend” cleanser works wonders on pots and pans, and keeps shiny bottoms shiny! Give it a try!)
Mary Elizabeth says
I actually used the Revere Copper and Stainless Steel Cleaner for three decades, and they still make it. There is something in the polish to retard the staining of the copper, so I only had to clean the bottoms every month or so.
I’m not surprised you found some in great shape, Mick. I was very proud of my pots, and they came from three generations of my family. When I gave them away, they still looked almost brand new because we had taken care of them.
Kay says
yes the things above my stove do get covered in oil, depending on what I cook. I just toss an extra pan in to wash when I have just a few dishes to wash. And I wipe it down at least once a month.
Kitchens are messy. I find the enameled peg board is very easy to keep clean.
Laurel says
I am just too fussy and would have to have a whole set od pots and utensils for display only that never got used! It would never do for me to anything but pretty, shiny new stuff out in the open!
Laurel says
I do love cooking! But I sure love a picture pretty kitchen, even though a great part of day Is spent in my kitchen. I did always think that pegboard might not hold up the kind of scrubbing it would need to remove kitchen grime every month?
Richard Douglass says
Julia’s use of pegboard goes back to her days in cooking school in France. A photo of her primitive kitchen in Paris may be seen in the book, A Covert Affair, by Jennet Conant.
I get the impression that people with the most cooking skills are more often found in working style kitchens, rather than the show kitchens mainly designed to impress.
Pegboard in kitchens might possibly be one of those timeless things. They seem to be found in kitchens from the 1930s all the way up to now.
pam kueber says
Yes, on to our timeless list it goes! Thanks for that reminder!
Mary Elizabeth says
Richard Douglass, yes, I agree that chefs and other serious cooks (by which I mean people who are serious about developing their cooking skills, not necessarily those who have reached Cordon Bleu status) organize their kitchens for use over aesthetics. One example is the built in counter cutting board or the butcher block top on the island rather than some material that will be damaged by a knife. The other is the organization of tools. In a real cook’s kitchen, there are things on the countertop and next to the stove, etc. that can be seen and reached easily.
I used to watch Julia Child cooking, and I used to laugh about how unconcerned she was about how things looked in her cooking space. “Ooh,” she said on one show, in her oft-parodied high voice, “if the first crepe doesn’t come out right, don’t worry.” And she proceeded to rip that ruined crepe out of the pan with her fingers and flip it over her shoulder, where it went splat! on the wall and slithered down to the counter or floor behind her. From her, and not from my anxious mother, I learned that it is OK to experiment and not worry if everything doesn’t come out just so. I think she lived that principle in her life as well as in the kitchen.
pam kueber says
Great story about Julia Child! And wonderful principle, to be sure!
Kay says
I have a tiny galley kitchen with white Youngstown steel cabinets. I added a wall of enameled steel pegboard over my kitchen stove. It was like I added another cabinet. I have all my most used tools on it. It’s great to be able to reach up and grab a pair of tongs.
I used Wall Control made in Georgia. https://wallcontrol.com/
you can add little shelves. All kinds of neat accessories. I love how easy it is to clean. I was inspired by Julia, but I worried about cleaning regular peg board. I am very happy with my pegboard and it coordinates with my cabinets.
I would be happy to send a photo if anyone wants to see it.
pam kueber says
Painted enamel steel pegboard: I LOVE IT! Thanks for letting us know about this source! We will do a story. And YES, send a photos, that would be fabulous!!!
Kathryn says
I installed pegboard on the wall in the kitchens of each apartment I lived in during the 1970s. They never had enough storage for a cook. In the apartment in which I lived when first married, we had a one-wall kitchen in the hall between living room and bedrooms. It had approximately 2 feet total of counter space (between the sink and the refrigerator).
We put pegboard on the entire opposite wall. And, in addition to the pegboard, my handy husband created a one-ft deep counter height shelf in front of the pegboard which gave a place to put the blender, etc.
Jay says
I have it on doors to the crawl space in the basement furnace room. Very handy as it would have been wasted space. Great for hanging tools. Always enjoyed Julia’s shows filmed in her not huge but very efficient kitchen but personally not a fan of open storage for pans, utensils and dishes.
Mary Elizabeth says
Pegboard is great in a small kitchen! My first home (1969) was a tiny rented cottage (maybe 700 square feet) that my mother-in-law called “the doll’s house you live in.” There was only a pre-war metal sink with drainboards and built-in cabinets on each side and a small wall cabinet for dishes. One wall of the kitchen was entirely empty. We painted the kitchen peach with apricot and put up two pegboards on the wall, from the chair rail up to the low ceiling. We painted the pegboards peach and hung literally everything except plates up there–pots, lids, utensils, even cups! We had metal dishes in primary colors, a set of Catherineholm lotus pots, etc. And we did outline the pots and cups and other tools so we could figure out where they went.
Other hanging systems came in during the 1980s–a kind of grid with moveable hooks. Those were a good system for my condo. I would hang my collection of Revere copper-bottom pans, which even when I was a working mother I polished about once per month, so they were always shiny.
Now that I have a knotty pine kitchen with lots of cabinet space, I don’t need all that. But it certainly was a good space saver in my “doll’s house.”
Jennifer says
I may be thinking of someone else, but I think think Julia Child may have outlined the things she kept on a pegboard to make it easy to remember where each thing goes. (Or “inlined,” if that’s a word–slightly inside the edges instead of outside the edges.) Works well for pegboard for tool benches and kids’ rooms.
Hestia Athena says
Jennifer,
You are absolutely right!
Mrs. Child did outline all her utensiles on the pegboard. She did that so her husband would be able to put things back where they belonged.
I am trying to retro my small kitchen, but alas, I don’t have enough wallspace to put up pegboard. Then I know my roommate would also put things away correctly. What a pity!