Inspiration For A Perfectly Organized Junk Drawer

Kitchen junk drawers are a notorious dumping ground for all the little stuff. Hopefully this post will give you the inspiration to make your own perfectly organized junk drawer!

I’m back today with another organizational post, this time involving the infamous “kitchen junk drawer.” I would love to show you a before picture of this drawer because that’s always more dramatic, but the truth is, up until now I hadn’t even put our “junk” in a drawer. It was still dumped in boxes from our semi recent (if you can call 9 months ago recent) move.

Inspiration For A Perfectly Organized Junk Drawer

As far as I know, most people have some kind of catch-all drawer in their kitchen. Unless you’re some sort of secret ninja organizer who manages to get rid of those unexplainable small things that seem to appear out of nowhere, junk drawers are a necessary evil when it comes to home organization. I believe that with the right mindset and a pack of small containers, conquering that junk drawer clutter is possible…and might just make you look forward to opening that drawer up!

Since our recently completed kitchen renovation, I’ve been slowly going through our kitchen drawers one by one and trying to figure out how they would best work for our family. Immediately after the reno, this drawer held all of our dog stuff. Yup, dog stuff. It was close to the patio door and I didn’t know where else to put it, so I inadvertently dedicated a whole drawer in our kitchen to our 3.5 pound yorkie.

I should also explain that we live in a two bedroom home, and since all the bedrooms are in use, there is no extra space for a home office or miscellaneous room/space. We’ve been utilizing a hall closet as a family command center/pseudo office, which is actually working pretty well. The only real pain point has been having to rifle through various baskets in that closet to find our “desk drawer essentials” when we need them. Which seems kind of silly when you’re just looking for a stamp or post-it note. Which led to the epiphany I had to turn our “dog drawer” into our “kitchen/desk junk drawer.”

What You’ll Need To Organize Your Kitchen Junk Drawer

The number one thing you need is some sort of  container set. I found the set I’m using at HomeGoods but you can find these types of plastic sets just about anywhere. You just need to remember to look for a set that has at least 3 different size baskets in it so that you can arrange them to fit in whatever type of drawer you have. I use this kind  in our bathroom drawer and have been happy with them. I’ve also seen people reuse small food boxes and containers covered in pretty wrapping paper for this same purpose. The possibilities really are endless.

The second thing that I find helpful is some kind of  drawer liner. I can’t remember where I found this navy blue gingham drawer liner, but I wish I had more of it! It was a fairly small roll and I used the rest up doing the play kitchen mini makeover.  Whatever you end up using, the goal is to make the bottom of the drawer non-slip so your little containers of stuff don’t go flying every time you open it up. #theworst

Organizing The Little Things

Once I had my drawer liner down and containers arranged, I started by laying everything out on the counter that we use on a semi daily basis. The whole point of a junk drawer or desk drawer is to have easy access to the little things you use the most. This is going to look different depending on your family and home. For instance, a home with an office may not utilize a kitchen junk drawer the same way our family does since we don’t have a home office.

I used the smallest containers for things that are equally as small, or easy to lose. Paper clips, post-it notes, stamps, and of course, an entire small bin devoted to washi tape. Priorities, right? For the larger bins I really just tried different combinations of things until everything fit and I felt like items could be easily seen/found at first glance when you open the drawer up.

Cute & Functional

Obviously colorful containers and cute drawer liner can go a long way toward vastly improving the look of any drawer you’re organizing. But don’t forget the most important part: the actual functionality. You get to decide what goes in that drawer. Think long and hard about what you use on a daily basis. If you have a family, what they use on a daily basis. Here are a few things I ask myself when I’m organizing just about anything:

• How often do I use this item? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? Determining how often you use it is the first step towards figuring out if you need it close by (like in a junk drawer) or stored somewhere slightly less convenient.
• Where do I use this item? Determining where something needs to be stored can make your life a whole lot simpler. We do our bills and mail at our kitchen island, so in my case this meant keeping our desk supplies all in one place with easy access, rather than tucked away in a basket inside a closet.
• You can do anything you want. Honestly, maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I feel like I need permission to try new things or move things in our home. Why is that? There are no hard rules, we can use the space we have any way we want. So don’t be afraid to think outside of the box when it comes to your space.

Do you have a junk drawer in your home? Is it in the kitchen like ours was growing up? Let me know what you put in yours and how you use it!

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