Consider a French cleat wall. I've gotten all my tools out of boxes (from when I moved 3 years ago) and up onto the wall. Everything: measuring and marking tools, router bits, 24-piece Forstner bit set, set of 7 Narex chisels, every possible screwdriver, the miter gauge to my Unisaw, my Biesemeier fence, several table saw blades, featherboards and push sticks, cordless drill and impact driver, three sets of drill bits, plunge router, jigsaw and blades, circular saw, mortising jig, a jig I made to make wooden burr puzzles, my Kreg board, several saws and hammers, levels, shooting board, winding sticks, a crude miter box, heavy stapler with several sets of staples, now-unused (but retained) factory boxes for my Lie-Nielsen 4-1/2 and Boggs curved spokeshave (pampered now in their own honored racks above the bench with their elder brethren, out of the photo frame), my beloved supercool full-disk dado set and extra-awesome self-designed and shop-made router fence (for years my two favorite tools until I caught the antique Stanley bug), a pair of hold downs, a bit brace, a bag of shop rags, and even wood storage up top, and I'm sure I've missed something –– all hanging at arm's length. And there's still lots of room, maybe a third of the wall. Did anyone spot the toilet snake?
cleat wall.jpg
My one regret is that I screwed the holding cleats directly into the sheetrock, which was not perfectly flat. Small matter, but if I had it to do over, I'd start with a plywood surface sheet over the sheetrock to make everything a little flatter, and maybe give it a snazzier look as well.
All this takes time and care, because you end up creating a custom holder for each tool or set of tools. But you get to watch those tools come up off the bench and into tidy accessible cubbies, always at the ready, and easy to rearrange in a few seconds. You love it every day.