Spent my Sunday finally getting the bench under control

Did the same teardown of my bench last month after finding a resistor lead stuck to the bottom of my coffee mug, which was the wake-up call I needed. The pegboard was the part that actually stuck for me too. Mine is a 2x4 foot panel from the hardware store painted white so I can see the tools against it, and I traced each tool outline with a marker so it's obvious when something hasn't gone back. Took about an afternoon including mounting it into studs.

One thing that helped more than I expected was putting a small tray on the bench just for screws and tiny parts during a project. Before that, every loose fastener ended up in whatever spot was nearest, which is how I lost track of things for weeks at a time.

On the handheld, cleaning the rubber pads with some isopropyl and a cotton swab usally brings the buttons right back. If they're still mushy after that, check the carbon contact dots on the pads, sometimes they wear down enough that a fresh pad set is the fix. Also give the contact points on the board a light wipe while you're in there, old handhelds collect a surprising amount of grime around the buttons.

Hope the screws show up on time. Mine always seem to arrive the day after I lose patience and improvise.

I went the opposite direction on the tool storage, though I know that's heresy in a pegboard thread. Mine all live in a five drawer cabinet from a clearance sale at Sears years ago, and the only thing that lives on the bench top is whatever the current project needs. I found that anything hanging in reach just became a place to pile junk. The one thing I did keep out is a small magnetic parts tray, since screws rolling off the bench was my personal version of your lost laptop screw. I lost a whole bag of T5s behind the desk for two months once. They turn up under the baseboard eventually, but the tray ended that for good. One thing that helped me with a mushy button feel on a DS Lite I rebuilt: wash the rubber pads with warm water and a drop of dish soap, rinse well, and let them dry fully before reassembly. Isopropyl on a cotton swab works for the contact pads on the board if they look grimy. If the pads still feel dead after cleaning, the carbon dots on the back sometimes wear smooth, and a fresh donor pad set from a junked unit fixes it. For the screws, a paper muffin liner per screw size keeps the reassembly sane. Ask me how I know what happens when you skip that step.

Still new around here and honestly my setup is just a folded towel on the kitchen table, so a whole pegboard wall sounds like something from another universe. I keep my loose parts in an old pill bottle and pray I hear them rattle when one goes missing. Reading this made me realize I should probably claim a real corner of the garage before my wife stages an intervention. Does the silicone mat stay put on its own or do you need to stick it down? I tried one of those cheap heat resistant mats off a marketplace listing last year and it curled up at the corners within a week, so I'm wary of wasting money twice.

Update: console is back togather. Screws showed up Thursday, cleaned the rubber pads with some isopropyl and the buttons feel crisp again. Reading about the resistor lead stuck to the coffee mug made me check under my mat one more time and I found a stray washer down there, so the purge paid off twice.