Junk drawers. A necessary evil made to contain the chaos in our daily lives. We all have them, and they are nothing to be ashamed of. But even junk drawers can be organized. I believe hiding our knick-knacks is key to a clutter-free kitchen, office, bathroom, craft area, or hallway. No one wants to look at safety pins and scotch tape lying about right? Drawer organizers play a huge part in my junk drawer organization efforts. I say “efforts” because my many, many, MANY junk drawers throughout the house have a lot of work yet to be done to them. Bigger compartments are best as catch-alls to stray hair ties and lint rollers, disposable wooden chopsticks and birthday candles.
So here’s the confession part… I peek into people’s junk drawers sometimes.
“What?!?! That’s so rude and intrusive!”
Yup. I know. And they say a lot about the family and what happens in their lives. That’s why I have a slight obsession with them. I love the contents of junk drawers. I don’t do it to be rude or to judge! I do it to get a raw glimpse into the people’s lives within that house. Besides, I have no place to judge because some of my personal junk drawers are crazy disorganized.
My house has not one, but several junk drawers. 2 in the kitchen, a tower of 8 “junk” drawers for crafting stuff and 2 for pens and other stationery items in a bureau by the front door.
I recently organized a few drawers just as a refresher. Divide and conquer is my thought process. I got a trash bin and just started chucking useless shit.
Dead batteries, un-rubbery rubber bands, scraps of paper with illegible e-mails scribbled on them, an entire set of dried out markers, rusty picture hanging nails, an unused roll of double stick tape that didn’t stick on either side… You get the gist. I filled that trash bin to the brim! I found a crab claw cracker and little picks to pull out the crab meat that we have used… never.
Actually, now that I’m writing this, is any ‘top drawer’ in my house NOT a junk drawer? Why do we have so much stuff? I welcome you to come over and take a look in our junk drawers. What will you find? What discoveries about our lives are hidden within them?
Hopefully a well curated and meaningfully collected mish-mash of junk which tells the story of our daily lives.
-K