The Junk Drawer

  

The Junk Drawer might be the greatest or the worst drawer in your house. For me, it's the greatest. At least since I organized it. I know you're thinking why organize a junk drawer, it's suppose to be unorganized, chaotic, and crazy. I could never find what I needed that I knew was in that drawer. It wasn't until after I cut.my.finger! that I decided that drawer needed a good cleaning. Of course I went to my trusty Pinterest to see what I could find.

  Here's what I found: 

• Take everything out of the drawer. Yes, everything. Leave only the dirt and dust.
• Vacuum out said dirt and dust.
• Use a wet cloth and disinfect the drawer (my vinegar mixture did the trick).
• Decide how you need to sort things. Pens/pencils, batteries, note pads, miscellaneous, etc.
• Save boxes such as cereal, rice, whatever (these types are easier to cut with regular scissors.)
• Cut the bottoms off of those boxes.
• Wrap boxes in pretty scrapbook paper… or wrapping paper… or anything cute. Just the outside is what really matters.
• Sort your junk and throw out what you don't need.

  Pretty easy. But don't let me fool you-- it did take me a few hours to complete this task. In fact, I think it took more like a day, what with making my boxes pretty. The biggest bonus is probably that I didn't spend any money to do this. I already had the scrapbook paper and the boxes were going to be recycled anyway.
  You might be wondering what I cut my finger on. It was a broke light bulb! WTH? Really? Yes, really. In our junk drawer I found menus to restaurants long closed, a broken light bulb, keys that have no lock, corroded batteries, stapled staples, bits of paper, nails, screws, broken rubber bands, candy without a wrapper… the list goes on. It won't pretty. I'm pretty sure you don't need this kind of junk in YOUR junk drawer. So clean it out!
  Now, you might be a skeptic like I was at first. "I'll organize this drawer now and in a week, it'll be junked up again." Not so. If everything has a home, make it live there. Our junk drawer is 4 months successful. I love it! It's still a place for all of our junk but everything has a home. I hope you'll come to love your junk drawer as I have come to love mine. Good luck!