In our new home we were blessed with a few more drawers in our kitchen so I was able to make one a dedicated junk drawer. However, I certainly didn’t want it to be “junky,” but that’s exactly what had happened over the first several weeks of living in our home. So I went on a mission to turn this junky space into a clean and functional drawer that would serve my family and our needs well. But trying to keep things minimal in this junk drawer organization project was a little tricky!
As I’ve been working on setting up my home and getting all the little nooks and crannies organized, I’ve discovered something. There are a handful of spaces that are a must for me to organize first. These are spaces that take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to organize and cost little to nothing to complete. However, they have a HUGE impact on our day to day life.
So I’ve decided to highlight 8 different spaces in my home over the next 8 weeks. You will find simple, affordable, and practical tips to help you get your home and life a little less cluttered and a little more organized in the spaces you use the most!
I was in the middle of finishing up a grocery list, making breakfast for my boys, and talking on the phone to my son’s doctor attempting to write down a phone number with all of the non-functional pens in our junk drawer when I decided I’d had-it! The junk drawer was going to be purged and organized! That was that. Because when your junk drawer looks something like this, it’s probably time for some purging and organization!
I added a stop in at The Dollar Tree to my to-do list for the day and came home with two extra items for a whopping $2! I’d been putting this project off for far too long. Every time I reached in this drawer I became frustrated and it was time to change that.
I took everything out and spread it out on the counter. I threw away the trash and sorted everything into like categories. It amazed me how many pens, pencils, markers, and highlighters had accumulated in two short months in this space. Seriously, how many do we really need?!
I also returned many items to their dedicated home. I think we had too often been lazy and instead of returning items to their original home, stuffed them in this drawer. Can you tell?! 🙂
I then cleaned the drawer thoroughly with my Method all-purpose cleaner and then started placing my bins and baskets back inside. I used a few that I already had on hand as well as the baskets I purchased from The Dollar Tree.
I decided that many of the things we were keeping in this space probably belonged elsewhere. This drawer is situated in our kitchen near our dinner table. It’s very centrally located, but definitely doesn’t need to hold everything.
Junk Drawer Organization
I placed the long container in the back left corner for safety reasons because it would hold scissors, pens, pencils, markers, and highlighters. I only kept 2-3 of each in this space and threw out any that were no longer functional. I then placed a small container directly in front of that to hold our loose change. We will sometimes grab from this space to pay our son for extra small chores around the house or to go to wash the car. (We obviously need to restock this with more change!)
I placed our multi-tool in the front along with a hair tie and a few bobby pins for me. I use these to pull my hair back when I’m cooking so I wanted to keep a couple easily accessible.
In the back right corner I used a binder clip to contain any home or restaurant related coupons we receive in the mail that we might use. I only keep ones we might actually use. The rest are recycled.
In the center of the drawer I placed our box of matches for lighting candles. I then have a row of 3 small white baskets. The first basket holds basic medicine that we might need quick access to. I don’t like to keep much in here, but it does make it easier if we have a bottle of Tylenol or children’s allergy medicine easy to get to. Next I have a basket that holds scotch tape, a flashlight, chapstick, and super glue. The last basket is where we put our chip clips (which are mostly clothespins).
That’s it. I really purged a lot from this drawer. And now every time I open this space I smile because it’s so much more functional and organized.
If your struggling to organize your junk drawer, remember to keep it simple. Only keep in there what you use regularly. If it’s something that has a home elsewhere and you don’t reach for it often, don’t store it in your junk drawer.
If you have been putting off an organizing project for months, let me encourage you to get to it! It doesn’t have to cost you a ton of money or take a ton of time. This entire project took me less than 10 minutes and cost $2 to complete! But you will feel so much better when the task is finished.
What organizing project have you been putting off lately?
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