Friday, February 26, 2010

How to Organize a Kitchen Junk Drawer

How much junk can I cram into a small kitchen drawer?

A lot!

After rearranging these contents several times just to close the junk drawer (don't tell me this doesn't happen to you), I decided it was another excellent small space for OrgJunkie's 28 Day Organizing Challenge.


The decision to organize made, I immediately emptied the contents of the drawer on my kitchen table and sorted everything into piles.

How in the world did all that junk fit into one small drawer?!

And how many packages of sweet 'n sour sauce does a person really need?!  I had been wondering why I smelled BBQ when I opened the drawer.  And the bottle stuff?  Sam hasn't used a bottle for at least 6 months!

After throwing away the damaged BBQ packets, returning to their basement home the screws and rubber bands, and designating a new home for the bottle paraphernalia, I began the task of putting it all back in the drawer.
I kind of hated to clutter up such a beautiful space!  But an empty drawer isn't very useful so I got over that pretty quick.

Having everything already sorted made the organizing job relatively simple.  I just designated bins (which were in the drawer before but had no order to them) for the different groups.

Pens, sticky pads, and scissors went in one bin; straws, measuring spoons and knife in the second container; and lighters, matches, and house stuff in the third.  If you look closely you'll see I kept a couple of the condiment packets - but not many!!

The whole task took me about 15 minutes (during nap time) but it saves me at least that much time each week when I'm looking for something.  I like not feeling irritated when I open the kitchen junk drawer!  And that's worth spending 15 minutes for.

How much stuff do you have in your kitchen junk drawer?  Can you close it without rearranging the contents?

6 comments:

mer@lifeat7000feet said...

My kitchen junk drawer is filled with SO much stuff, mostly craft stuff and tools...things I want to be able to grab when I'm in a hurry.

My junk drawer has stayed surprising clean since December when I did an overhaul on it.

It's the pen/pencil/checkbook, Sharpie, paperclip, school supplies (basically the OFFICE drawer) that I have to clean out every 2-3 weeks (I'm OCD, remember?). I blame it on the children who are always taking things and not putting them back where they go!!!!

Great job, Stephanie!

Amy said...

Ahh...organization! Music to my ears! What a fun 15 minutes! :)

Flamingo said...

oh i surely have a junk drawer to organize. except mine would take 15 minutes just to pull the junk out! uuugh.

thanks for the inspiration....maybe this week. maybe:)

Wherever HE Leads We'll Go said...

I love the idea of organizing stuff (closets, drawers, etc.). We don't really have a junk drawer (no room for one). Our drawers are very shallow though, so the drawer where we store serving spoons and pie cutters and things like that, can be pretty tricky to close. Things have to be laid in there just right or else you cannot close it (or even worse - open it!).

Alexandra Rose said...

My kitchen drawer is the one place I literally cannot organise despite being an obsessive organiser. There's literally no where else to put it all. But I love my one drawer of craziness. Happy SITS day.
http://beingmama.com/

Stephanie Kay said...

My junk drawer has once again become a catch all for things without homes. That and way to many fast food sauce packets. I think this is one of those organizing projects I need to do every year. :D

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