Why painful, you ask?
I cleaned out four, yes FOUR, kitchen drawers last night and today, and EVERY SINGLE one of them had tacks spilled in them.
LOTS of tacks.
Really? Is this some cruel joke I play on myself while sleepwalking?
I have quite a few pictures I could show you. About 10 in fact. But I’m only going to show three since they all look pretty much the same.
Here’s the “can’t even close it without shoving stuff down inside” view:
Here’s the “Please don’t let someone open this drawer while looking for a spoon” view:
And here’s the “so basically NONE of that stuff actually needed to be in this drawer” view:
If “a-million-bajillion” is a real number, that’s how many pens/pencils we have in this house.
And yet, somehow, we can never find one when we need it. Hmmm.
My four kitchen “junk drawers” are now basically empty because as I cleaned them out, I discovered that they were full of . . . . well . . . . . junk.
And tacks.
Here was my organization thought-process.
Where would I go if I was looking for this item? (take it there)
If I needed this item, would it ever occur to me that I already have one? (If no, put it in the garage sale).
This is difficult for me. I like to have things on hand when I need them. But if my son’s kindergarten teacher were to ask me to bring glow-in-the-dark bracelets, I would go out and buy some because it would never occur to me that I still had some left from when my older son was in her class. So they would sit in that drawer until I found them, probably right after I had purchased more for my daughter’s class, two years from now.
So I got rid of them. They aren’t worth the storage/memory related stress when they only cost 1$ anyway.
I also found tons of appliance manuals that took up too much room and were getting increasingly damaged as other things were shoved in with them. They went into my new filing system.
And box tops. OOOOHHH, the boxtops. Wow. My kids are going to be heroes tomorrow when they take all of them to school.
I thought that I had a specific drawer to put them in. Evidently, I didn’t. There were box tops in all of the drawers.
I’ve sent groups of the box tops several times, but without ever thoroughly clearing out the drawer, and so I’d missed quite a few. I actually found four that were expired, two that expired in 08. Now, if you don’t collect box tops you probably don’t realize what that means. If you do, you know that the expiration dates on these things are typically 2-4 years out. Seriously. So if they were expired, they had been in there a very long time.
Even though my fingers are punctured and sore, I’m very glad that I did this. I’m considering consolidating at least two of the drawers, but for now, I’m just enjoying the empty space.
I’m linking up on Tackle it Tuesday at 5 Minutes for Mom. At first, I wasn’t going to link up to DIY day at A Soft Place, since I didn’t create anything beautiful. But I decided to, when it hit me that making it possible for my boys to locate a pencil AND a pencil sharpener to do their homework, without poking a finger, makes our home a “softer place to land.”
I’m also linking up on Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch.
I saw your link on 5minutesformom and had to come over. Nice job on those drawers! I laughed so hard at the boxtops because I recently did this as well. I think you did create something beautiful..a little more peace during homework time when they can find what they need.
Awesome tackle! I just tackled my house, and made a couple of my kitchen drawers look like your before picture. I guess that can be my next project…
Here's my tackle.
YAHOO! Great job! I don't even know you well enough, but I'd sure like to hug you! :>) I'm starting to get inspired and pulling thoughts together, here's what I wrote today:
http://nettacow.blogspot.com/2010/01/declutter-challenge-40-bags-in-40-days.html
As you can see, it isn't my idea. But it sure is a good one!
I have planned on decluttering the whole house since the beginning of the month. Guess what I haven't even started. Last weekend I even made a list for the week. Then I monday I get a call and had to take care of 100 lbs of meat. So everyything been out the door every since. Today is new day I going to work on my room. I also have four junk drawers in the kitchen too.
I love the two questions you asked and they've been at the forefront of my decluttering and re-organizing. I did a count last night, and I'm at around 20 bags of my 40 bag challenge – and that's just the fluff. Before too long, I'm going to need to start squeezing, getting rid of the things I've been hanging onto for just in case times that have so far not come. Anyway, I linked to this on my weekly roundup – thanks so much!
I haven't laughed out loud this hard in a long time. Thanks. I must admit…I too have been there! Great job with those drawers.