We all have a junk drawer (or ‘the bottom drawer’ as I refer to them with a notorious tone) and personally I can’t really see anyway around them. They serve a purpose and are rather handy and useful. The trouble is keeping control of them…

Last week I had a torrid time resulting from a couple of unplanned late nights. I DON’T do late nights, I’m an earlybird me and after 5am or earlier starts (yes this is by choice) I’m pretty much richard by 8:30-9pm. So 10pm or later causes all hell to break loose the next day and the devil possesses me entirely after 2 such late evenings. So after struggling all week with the satan of tired I only began to feel human after a good sunday sleep in and (finally I’m getting to the point of this post) a jolly good tidy up of something that’s been right royally peeving me for some good few weeks, which (dah!) in this instance was my bottom drawer.

I had kinda ‘let it go’ for two reasons; 1- that’s just how I tend to do things (if you don’t know I tend to describe myself as a train wreck kinda girl – I LOVE to see big results fast) & 2- I fancied that it would make a great post and I’d show the before and after pics. Well being that the devil was still nagging when I impatiently got started on this task I didn’t in fact take the before pic but please believe me when I tell you that the drawer did look like a train had crashed in there!

THE PROCESS

So this is how I went about it:

1. remove drawer and empty entire contents onto the floor (or table if you so desire – particularly if the old knees and hips tend to give you curry).

2. Broadly scoop things into like categories for eg; tools – screwdrivers, scissors, pliers etc. nuts and bolts. sticky tape and all things that stick!. i have absolutely no clue what the heck this is. and so on…

3. Trash anything that is broken and has been for sometime – the chances of it ever getting repaired are 2%! if you can bet your childs life that you’ll fix it TODAY then by all means keep it, but remember if you’ve been doing without it for a while now then……. hmmmm???? Now the one exception to this trashing rule is for those “i haven’t a clue what the heck this is” category. I my case there were a bunch of items I needed to run past the other half as his superior knowledge and memory can mean identifying things that are needed elsewhere or useful but not to me! This I did to excitedly discover the missing nut for the glass cover over the light on the ceiling fan – I had in fact done a stunning bodge job on this to resolve the problem I must admit, however it was great to find the proper item. Further to this situation then is that it is worth keeping some of these mystery items, particularly when there is ’something vaguely nagging at you’ about an item, so that’s why you have a little MISC container/bag.

4. Take any items that you know belong elsewhere and return them to those more appropriate locations and on the way back grab a fist full of those snap-lock sandwich bags and your label maker. You don’t have a label maker or sandwich bags? Off to the store with you then. I recommend the smaller bags (don’t want to encourage too much stuff to be loaded into them and the Brother p-touch labeller (much cheaper consumables for this brand).

5. Place like things in the bags and label them – except for tools definitely use a box or plastic container for those as you want to be able to reach into the drawer and grab them easily. I have found these tools to be useful to have indoors: blade & phillips (crosshead) screwdrivers – small &/or medium sizes, adjustable spanner, retractable knife, hammer, scissors, pliers – a wonderful amount of damage can be caused to small but stubborn items with this tool which will drive your hubby mad with frustration at your pathetic attempts to fix something. No doubt you’ll have a few of your own favourites as well.

6. Now just arrange those items in bags boxes and on their own into the drawer and you’re done! Put the drawer back in place take a photo and send it to me + put it on the fridge and constantly remind others of what a great job you’ve done. Regularly visiting the drawer and staring at it proudly will have the same effect. All you need to do now is be a little disciplined when using and replacing items in the drawer and it should remain (so keep that MISC bag near the front) tidy for a good long while.

I’m off to stare at my bottom drawer for a bit, bye for now.

Tweet This Post