Peranio began his career designing film sets for John Waters.
[3] Peranio's first credited project is the creation of Lobstora, a room-sized rapacious lobster in Waters' Multiple Maniacs (1970).
After Multiple Maniacs, Peranio developed a successful career creating the sets for all subsequent films of Waters and other films and TV shows, including Barry Levinson's Liberty Heights and the crime dramas, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Corner, and the HBO television production The Wire.
[3] Peranio and his wife, designer Dolores Deluxe, moved to Tavira, Portugal, in 2019.
[3][7] They had previously lived on Dallas Street in Fell's Point, Baltimore, where they gradually bought four adjoining rowhouses and merged them, modeling the property after an Italian villa, which was eventually dubbed the "Palace on Dallas".