31 Days to a Minimalist Lifestyle Day 4

I am writing every day in October--taking on the challenge set forth by The Nester for bloggers to write a "31 Days to..." blog series. I'm tackling Minimalist Living and you can click here to read Day 3's post.

Junk Drawer.

(did you hear creepy music in your head when you read that?)

My Our junk drawer makes my skin crawl. It's seriously that bad. Five people live here and 5 people use that junk drawer and either don't put things back or they just shove so much stuff into the junk drawer that it's just totally useless.

I'm not saying to not have a junk drawer, I really think every home needs a junk drawer. *Ahem, we actually have two. Plus a junk pile in the office. I digress....

The most organized junk drawer I've ever seen in person in my entire life belonged to my mother-in-law Nancy. (read more about the tragedy that happened to my in-laws here.)  Nancy was a good housekeeper, truly--but her junk drawer in the kitchen? Amazing. Wish I had a photo of it. She used those plastic silverware organizers and everything had a home-the scissors, tape, pencils, pens-you get the idea.

Is it still a junk drawer if it's organized? I sure think so. The basic idea that ties all junk drawers together is that they provide a HOME for stuff that really doesn't fit into other categories. Pencils, tape, scissors, batteries, erasers, screwdrivers, tape measure, lost button, pieces of broken toys, etc. Even if you are a minimalist, you still will have random stuff that needs a home.

Here's  lovely look at our junk drawer. Ok, both junk drawers. We have so much junk, we need TWO drawers to hold it all!

You can see I've made attempts at organizing them. I've got plastic pencil holders and cardboard containers I made by cutting off the bottoms of cereal boxes & the like. Nice try, right? Well, the problem is that so much stuff just lands here that it just doesn't stay organized. At all.

Step 1--Empty the junk drawer(s).

Step 2-Sort out the obvious trash

Step 3-Sort out the stuff that doesn't belong

Step 4-Put it all back!


This is the pile of stuff that needed to be re-homed. FOR THE RECORD, all of this crap stuff  is Brad's doing. All of it. Don't even get me started about the little tube of graphite that was in there. Graphite makes a HUGE mess and really should be under lock & key at our house.

This is the pile of stuff that needed to be re-homed that is either mine or the kids stuff. And yes, that is my Pink Hello Kitty Pinewood Derby Car!

All told, I pulled out close to 30 items that needed to be returned to their home, threw out over 45 things and managed to combine 2 junk drawers into one.

For realz, people.

Take a peek:

The empty drawer:

I can't make this stuff up. I seriously have an empty drawer in my kitchen!!! If it gets filled up I will ground the person who filled it. Ground them FOR LIFE.

I must "oooo" and "awww" at my lovely befores/afters side by side. LOVE IT!

Is it a minimalist junk drawer? Probably not. Is it easy to find stuff which in turn might make my life easier? Indeed it is and that's minimalist enough for me.