Mission: Organization, The Junk Drawer

Everybody has one.  You can't deny it.  It's a drawer, usually in one's kitchen, that accumulates...stuff.  All of those things that have no true home in your house.  You pick them up, look at them, and realize that you have nowhere to put the stuff!  And so, to the junk drawer it goes.

Our junk drawer was in definite need of some help.  Here's how I knew:

1) It was almost impossible to close.  You'd have to rearrange the contents just so it would shut.  And that was frustrating.

2) When the contents would be rearranged, something would inevitably fall out the back into the cabinet below.  Oh, the things I found in that cabinet.

3) When I would go to locate something that I knew was in the junk drawer, I wouldn't be able to find it because there was so much stuff.

This had to be remedied.  I couldn't stand it anymore.  I figured that the perfect time to fix this would be now.  I mean, it is Mission: Organization after all!

This is what our junk drawer looked like before the purge.  Scary, I know.

And then when you skimmed off the top layer...

We had a little bit of everything in there.  Lighter sticks, phone books, keys (so many keys, and I have no idea what half of them unlock), and oh, the batteries.  You name a type of battery, we had it.

I think I even found a car battery in there.

The first step was to clean everything out.  Everything that was in the drawer was taken out and placed on top of the counter.

Then, I started picking through.  And it was a process.

I cannot tell you how much stuff I ended up throwing away.  Things that were totally unnecessary.  Things that I had forgotten about.

Then there were the things that belonged in other places.  Mainly the garage.  I'm pretty sure that I found two screw drivers.  Sunglasses, instruction manuals, things that have no use being in that drawer.

I purchased a box from Wal-Mart (on clearance!) that had a divider in it.  I put items from the junk drawer in it.  It allowed me to be able to clearly see what I had within separate categories.  No more batteries rolling around.  No more iPod headphones getting tangled up.

I also bought two long containers.  One for lighter sticks, one for pens.  Because every time I went to that drawer for a pen I couldn't find one.  And I dug out about 10,000 when I cleaned out the drawer.

After I sorted, it was time to pick out what was going back in.  But truthfully, I purged SO MUCH that I didn't have a lot to pick from.  And that, my friends, makes for a successful Mission: Organization project!

It took me a while, but I'm pretty pleased with the end product.

And there you have it!  The first installment of Mission: Organization is complete!  I have so many more projects to do that it's a little overwhelming.  But the end result gives me an amazing feeling.

There's no stopping me now!  Mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!