Everyone has a junk drawer. It usually collects dust and, well, junk! It’s time to get that cleaned out and organized to know what you have!
Welcome to Day 2 of the 6 day Kitchen Organization challenge! Hopefully you had time to get your pantry in order yesterday, and you are ready to move on to today’s task. If not, don’t worry, you can always play catch-up today.
Originally Published On: November 1, 2021
Today’s Task: The Junk Drawer
Almost every kitchen has one, a junk drawer. That drawer that all the random little things go that you don’t have anywhere better to keep them. Usually things are just tossed in there and it become a mess. As long as you only have the one drawer, this one shouldn’t take you too long.
- Take everything out of the drawer.
- Wipe down the drawer if needed.
- Sort through everything and make 3 piles: trash/donate, keep in the drawer, keep but belongs somewhere else
- Group similar things, such as chip clips, pens, to-go menus… whatever else you keep in there, so you know how much room you need for each group.
- Decide if you need something to help organize the drawer. I find that modular drawer organizers work well for me since there are multiple sizes.
- Put everything back in the drawer and marvel at the level of organization you now have.
Inspiration & Resources
I put together a blog post with a list of some of my favorite organization products for the kitchen that you can find here: 7 Favorite Organizing Products for the Kitchen
If you are looking for some ideas for pantry and kitchen organization, I created a Pinterest board that you can find here: https://www.pinterest.com/sonshinekitchen/kitchen-organization-decor/
My Junk Drawer
We just have one small junk drawer in our kitchen. I found these modular organizers at Walmart a couple of years ago and they work great. You can see I have our chip clips (and a few extra batteries) in the large compartment. Next to that is a couple of pens, sharpies, scissors, and a small screwdriver (for all those toys that need it to replace the batteries). The far-right compartment is our wine stoppers. Above that are our box tops to give to the school and the superglue. On the far right is Tyler’s glasses case, eye patches, and camera, along with the chargers for their kindles.
Kitchen Organization
- 6 Days to an Organized Kitchen
- Day 1: The Pantry
- Day 3: The Refrigerator and Freezer
- Day 4: Under the Sink
- Day 5: The Cabinets
- Day 6: Catch-Up
If you have any questions, need any help, want suggestions on your unique situation, feel free to send me an email and I can give you some guidance!
Take some before/after photos and post them online using #sonshinekitchen so we can all see the progress you are making!
Contrary to popular belief, I’m actually not a fan of junk drawers. I’m of the mindset that everything in my home should have a purpose and I’m no fan of wasted space. I’d rather leave a drawer empty than let it accumulate things that I really don’t need. I have specific places for things that people generally put in junk drawers like clips, batteries, markers, Taco Bell packets (LOL) and such. I’ve adopted this stance on just having dedicated spaces after I accumulated about 4 years of junk mail that promptly went into the junk drawer. Now the junk mail goes straight to the shredder (or return to sender, if I’m feeling frisky) and everything else goes to its space. It helps me ultimately because I know where everything is and it’s not much of a guessing game. Nevertheless, your tips are fantastic. I think I’ll pass this along to my wife…who probably has hidden junk drawers in all of the cabinet and drawer spaces she was allotted in our split of the spaces.
I am so jealous. I’ve not done a tidy up in a while. The kids love to mess everything up. The organisers sound like something I need to get.
I do have a junk drawer and everything is just thrown inside so adding this to my list of what to clean this week. Thanks for the tips
Girl, we have junk boxes our drawers are full lol! We really can’t wait to organize them. Challenging to decide which knick knack we’ll actually use.
I think everyone has a junk drawer in their house and I was just looking at ours the other day and quickly closed it lol! You’ve inspired me to tackle it though this week- it definitely needs to get cleaned out. It always feels nice afterwards to have some organization.
I really need to clean out my junk drawer. Your junk drawer looks so neat!
I absolutely lovely this junk drawer organization idea. I am going to have to buy some plastic drawer sectionals so that I can become organized too.
HOW does the junk drawer keep coming back? I clear it out and have actually physically gotten rid of drawers that have been emptied and we no longer need – somehow the junk ALWAYS finds a home!
One of the few good things about moving is cleaning out those junk drawers and getting organized. I don’t like clutter and find it so hard to find things when they’re not organized so I appreciate this.
Your junk drawer looks really well organised! I do not have a junk drawer in my home, instead we have a little junk basket that we dump out when doing a deep clean and find homes for everything.
Yours turned out nice. Maybe the little containers would help me. I redo my junk drawers every so often but they get cluttered again so fast.
I feel so much better when I get organised, I have started getting little containers to put in each drawer and cupboard too to stop me throwing things in and keeping them separate
These are useful tips. My junk drawer gets filled with such random stuff, I get lazy to clear it! I will try your tips out.
Ah! This encourages me to organize my junk drawer (actually drawers, lol). They can get super messy quickly!
DUN! DUN DUN!! The junk drawer of endless random crap. LOL I try to go through ours once a year and always do I wonder why I didn’t through half of the stuff I put in there in the trash.
I definitely need to do this with my junk drawers. Too much clutter!
Every time we move, I request that we not have a junk drawer. And somehow, my husband finds a way of making one.
I definitely need to tidy up my drawers! They’re getting a bit full.
I like to take everything from the drawer to see all the things I have. categorize them and decide wether to keep or throw. It’s how I clean the Junk drawer
Junk drawers are the places I avoid cleaning and organizing. But thanks for these tips. I always find some items that I do not want in my drawer. Its hard to decide which is junk or essentials
This just motivated me to organize my drawers. Finding the right compartments is so important.
To organize your junk drawer, wow! loved the idea and will totally clean mine now. Thanks for sharing!
I have a junk drawer in my house as well, it’s only for things that I need to store in temporarily just to clean up space a bit. I always go back to that drawer to arrange and get items to put in areas where they belong.
I am really not a fan of a junk drawer. By definition, it just doesn’t sound good. However, I have two of them and they need cleaning.