Peace of Mind Organizing

Taming the messy drawer (and a giveaway!)

8 March 2010

In our kitchen we have lots of drawers. One of them is a drawer full of miscellaneous cooking utensils and gadgets that we don’t use much. The things we use with any regularity are usually on top, but that’s the extent of the organization of the drawer. And that’s not really organization at all. That’s just physics.

The good folks at Rubbermaid recently sent me a set of six no-slip interlocking drawer organizers to try out. So one day last week I spent 28 minutes organizing that utensil drawer.

Here’s a before shot. I know, ugly.

I pulled everything out of the drawer and put it on the counter. I found a few duplicates, like the three pizza cutters and the two citrus reamers. There were a lot of dog-themed cookie cutters, because back in 2003 I wrote a couple of dog-treat cookbooks. (I no longer bake dog biscuits; my dogs think that Milkbones® are manna from heaven.)

Here’s a shot of the stuff laid out on the counter. (Try not to laugh at our 80s-era red countertops.)

I sorted like things together and I called my husband in to identify the more esoteric items, like the asparagus peeler and the absinthe spoon. My husband is a “but we might need it some day” kind of guy and since the kitchen is his territory, I bowed to his wishes. Case in point: There was an unopened box of wine charms. I was ready to donate them because we’d never used them, but my husband said he didn’t know we owned any (that’s the problem with a messy drawer). He says we’ll use them. So they stayed.

I didn’t get rid of a ton of stuff. But I did part with a bunch of cookie cutters.

I pulled out the Rubbermaid drawer organizers and in just a few minutes put everything away. There’s still a lot in that drawer. But the stuff we use the most (for me, that’s the yellow lemon juicer and the grippy mat thing for opening tight lids) is very accessible. The wine charms and corn-cob holders are neatly contained. Like things are together.

Note that the drawer was much larger than the drawer organizer set. That worked out just fine. The organizers added much-needed structure to the drawer and I used the space next to it and behind it as well.

It’s very satisfying. And the whole process took literally 28 minutes. That’s the thing about little messes. We tolerate having to search around for things in a drawer, for example. Just a little focused effort on sorting, weeding and putting things in appropriate containers can make such a huge difference.

Giveaway!

Rubbermaid has offered to send a set of drawer organizers to one lucky reader of my blog. To enter, just make a comment below and/or tweet about the giveaway. (Be sure and put my twitter handle, @janinea, in the tweet, so I’ll see it.)

A winner will be selected at random on Saturday afternoon (March 13). I’m sorry, but the giveaway is open to people in the U.S. and Canada only. That’s not because my last winner lived in Switzerland. It’s because Rubbermaid will be shipping the product and that’s their stipulation.

Tagged with: decluttering, giveaway, organizing products, rubbermaid

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