OPERATION: Organization. The Kitchen Drawer Edition

I'm pretty sure everyone has the drawer in their house. That drawer that you throw all the junk that you don't know where else to put. Ours is in the kitchen under our coffee bar.

I've put myself on a mission to slowly organize small little nooks in our house one by one. I've told you before how much I hate clutter and this drawer in particular has been bothering us for a while. I'm slightly ashamed to even show you what the drawer looked like, but for the sake of keeping it real on the blog, here goes.

As you can see we've shoved a whole lot of random crap into one little drawer. After weeks (actually months, years?) of being frustrated with this drawer, I finally decided last night to bite the bullet and organize it.

I made a little trip to Ikea after work yesterday and while I was there, picked up this great little cutlery organizer for less than $2. 

To get an idea of the scope of all the crap we shoved into that drawer, I took everything out and spread it out on the counter so I could easily organize, toss, and relocate.

We've got office, supplies, tons of batteries, napkin rings, keys, lighters, magnets and photos from the fridge, shutter shades (because you never know when you'll need them in a pinch), a flashlight, pens, tools that I was too lazy to bring down into the basement, a breathalizer (A gift from my mom for each of her kids. Again, you never know when you might need one), lint roller, chip clips, etc.

First I tossed what I either forgot we even had, knew we'd never need, or was broken/unusable. Then I relocated things like screwdrivers, napkin rings, photos, etc that just didn't belong in the drawer. 

Finally I took the cutlery tray and began too organize. In little to no time the drawer looked like this:

It's seriously like a breath of fresh air. The drawer looks so much better and it only took maybe 10 minutes to do this project. Quick and easy. Such a motivator for me to start doing this in other spots of the house that need a little organizational TLC. As you can see, I kept the things that we'd actually need to use in the kitchen: office supplies, spare keys, batteries, a mini tool set, lint roller, lighters, etc.

In case you were wondering what's going on in the other drawer underneath the coffee bar, I snapped a shot for you to see.

It's the typical takeout menu drawer. We also keep all the manuals from appliances, electronics and baby gear that we've bought over the years in a large freezer ziplock for easy access. The yellow/black bag holds all the paint chips I've collected from my many painting adventures. I like to keep the chips of paints we used and write on the back of them what room the color was used for in case I never needed to get more. The flashlight was relocated from the other drawer.

Doesn't everyone have a stack of like 15 Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons? Because they never expire and you don't want to throw any out just in case you need them. There's also a random Pottery Barn clock that I bought for maybe $3 at a thrift store just chilling in that drawer. I'm not exactly sure why.

One more time to compare:

Well, there you have it. Operation organization was a success! It took little to no time and barely any money to reorganize this drawer. In the end, we both feel a little less scattered having this drawer tackled and cleaned up.

Check back later today for another post featuring a few Pinterest pins I've been trying.