Exposed Studs in Garage

[shooting4life]

I have an 18 foot wide by 23 foot deep garage. The two walls that are not adjoining to the house are currently ¼ ply wood attached to a 2x3 nailing strip on the bottom, center and top of the wall. This makes it so that nothing can be hung from the week ply wood unless you are attaching directly to the nailing stip. The walls are 2x4 studs but the nailing strips were needed because it added the additional clearance at the bottom of the wall for a natural gas pipe. I don’t want to move the gas pipe so if a wall covering is used it will have to be raised off of the studs.
The current set up is not functional since I cannot hang anything on the walls. I want your thoughts on a couple of solutions. The first would be to take down the ply wood and add additional nail strips beneath the wall and put the thin ply wood back up. I do not want to spend the money for 10 pieces of thicker ply wood at this time. The second option would be just to take the plywood and nail strips down and have an exposed 2x4 stud wall. Then hang/install whatever I want to the studs. The electrical will be ran in conduit on the outside of the wall even if the plywood is reused. What do you think about these two ideas?
I do not want to drywall and I don’t have a problem with the way exposed studs look for a garage. I live in a very moderate climate area. The hottest it will get outside in the summer is about 85 F and the coolest it will get outside in the winter during the day is 50 F. I don’t work very often in the garage, maybe 5-8 hours a week so the temperature is not an issue for me.

 

[Falcon67]

That's about 10 sheets of 4x8x7/16 OSB, which would be around $140 here last time I was in HD this week.

 

[Oldbear]

I would pull the plywood off and put up more nailing strips. I know you don't want to spend the extra right now - but consider pegboard or slat wall for a later upgrade. I would avoid bare studs for cleanup and sound proofing.

 

[Nowater]

How about putting up more nailer strips, returning the thin ply to the walls and select a few places to put up thicker ply on top of that, but just where you want to attach things. The new ply would not have to cover the entire wall, and you could also just put it behind say, upper cabinets while leaving a set space open below the new ply so the job could be finished later as money allows.

 

[kbs2244]

Take down the plywood.
Put in your electric.
Put the mailers vertical on the face of the studs.
Paint the plywood white and reinstall.

 

[Kevin54]

How about posting up a pic or two of what you're dealing with? You may be able to losen the clamps on the gas line and slip something in behind it.

 

[JamieK]

Attach the plywood directly to the studs, but just box out the lower portion for the gas line.