This drawer has been making me crazy.
For a very . . . . long . . . . time.
It’s the drawer that makes me appear to be a neurotically over-zealous host. While in fact, I’m just neurotic.
When a casual serve-yourself-from-the-stove guest asks where the forks are . . . and my husband accidentally tells them . . . . I find myself knocking people over to get there first.
So today, I cleaned it out.
I heard Peter Walsh recommend that for a drawer like this, you should dump everything in a box and leave the box on the kitchen counter for a month. As you need things, you take them out of the box and put them back in the drawer. At the end of the month, anything left in the box gets thrown out or donated.
Great idea . . . except that I suffer from a Time Passage Awareness Disorder and the box would probably sit there for . . . much longer than a month.
And I would forget why the box was there and pile more stuff in it, around it, etc.
I pulled everything out of the drawer and found all sorts of crazy things. Things like fistfuls of gathered-from-restaurants plastic cutlery (from the days when I couldn’t trust myself to have clean forks on hand). Things like doll silverware, and hot glue sticks, and box tops, and this:
Thankfully, that’s not an actual fishing lure. It’s just a Christmas ornament made of fishing lures.
Which is so much better.
I realized that half of my steak-knives were totally pathetic. We avoid using them, and they’ve been totally pathetic since I bought them . . . at a garage sale. A garage sale where someone else put them because they decided they were pathetic.
Mmmm-hmmm.
And it turns out that the bread pan where I stored them, that I had assumed was too short for the knives, wasn’t actually too short.
It was just too short for the overabundance-of-knives-all-shoved-in.
Too bad I didn’t figure that out sooner.
Anyway, I washed the liner, cleaned out the organizer, and put back only the things that I decided we really needed, and that actually went in the drawer. (There were LOTS of things that should have been on the other side of the kitchen in the drawer next to the stove.)
Much better now:
Not perfect . . . but ever so much better. I now realize that I need to get a new organizing system for this drawer. I knew that this one didn’t have the spaces we need, but because the drawer was such an overall disaster, I didn’t feel like I could make a real judgement call on it.
Just proves what I have learned over and over. Declutter first, then organize.
And I made my first Decluttering Webisode!!!! If you’d like to see this project in video form, go check it out!
Check out my Decluttering page to see more of my decluttering projects and read what I’ve learned (from way too much experience) about how to declutter.
Awesome, awesome vlog. I loved it. Very entertaining. Good job on your first go-round!
Ah ha!!! THAT’S what I’ve been doing!!! Decluttering first & THEN Organizing. I’ve been busy this summer getting rid of the easy stuff, the no-brainer stuff, the garbage…. then I’ll go back & organize…. I know this will take longer but, I figure, like you, I’ll get better at it as I go along. The next time I go through to actually organize, I’ll be able to do a better job because I can declutter even more!
Cute Vlog. :-p
Thanks for keepin’ it real!
You did a Great job on the Vlog!
I think the fishing lure ornament is adorable! Must find its way back to the Christmas ornaments storage spot so it can make an appearance on the tree in a few months. 😉
And, oh man – I hate, hate, hate those cutlery drawer organizers with specific spots for the forks, the spoons, etc. They are great IN THEORY and when everything is neatly lined up, but that just never works out at our house. This past spring, I tossed out all of the mismatched silverware that I HATED looking at all the time, bought a couple packets of simple (cheap) matching forks and spoons (flat handles instead of the big chunky plastic handles – so they look less cluttered), and now use one small drawer organizer rectangle for each type of flatware – one for all spoons, one for all forks, and one for all butter knives. The sharp knives have a new home – a wall-mounted magnetic strip which I LOVE – easy for me to access but out of the kiddos’ reach.
When I wash dishes, I separate by forks, spoons, butter knives and sharp knives – each type in a different compartment of the silverware basket with handles down (except sharp knives handles up). When they’re done washing (and air-drying :)), I just grab all the spoons and dump them in the bin in the drawer – no more stacking each individual piece, woohoo! And since they’re all identical (and the handles at least all facing the same way), it still looks tidy – even after the kids have rummaged through the drawer. 😛 Love it.
Melissa, the individual silverware baskets are a wonderful idea! I bet they’re so much easier to clean than the larger organizers.
Loved the first webisode! Makes me want to clean out my junk drawer!
One of my big A-HA moments was when I realized that “decorating” “organizing” and “decluttering” were three completely different things. I often do one in hopes of achieving the other — if only I declutter things will magically look pretty and be organized. Or — if only I organize things I will realize that I don’t actually have too much stuff.
Loved the webisode! You are hilarious! 🙂 And real..and that’s what makes you fabulous!
Oh!!! I remembered what I was going to write earlier…. lol
And it’s been a nutso-crazy day here getting ready for a yard sale, so I can’t remember if it was in your Blog or your Vlog that you mentioned this…. and I am so tired I can’t be bothered to look…. so anyhoot…
Remember when you said about Peter telling you to put a box of stuff on your counter & only getting the stuff out of it that you need and then putting those things in your drawer? And you said that you’d forget what it was for & pile more stuff in….. .What I did was put away only the bare essentials…. then I put the rest of the stuff in the back corner of the pantry…. where I hardly ever go….. sooooo…. when I go to declutter/straighten the pantry again I can just toss all of those extra items….
I hope I made sense…. lol
Loved the vlog! You are totally adorable and very funny. Nice job!
And these lines from the post:
“Thankfully, that’s not an actual fishing lure. It’s just a Christmas ornament made of fishing lures.
Which is so much better.”
ROTFLMBO. Some of the funniest words written in a blog post. Ever.
Congrats on the 2 year blogiversary too! I started reading several months after you started and I’ve been enjoying your blog ever since. It’s nice to see it continuing to grow, and vlogging seems like such a natural progression for someone with a theatre background like you. Can’t wait for the next one!
Love the webisode! Looking forward to more … thanks for being so honest about yourself and your journey out of slobdom. I’m trying to escape, too …
Okay I seriously loved the webisode. Cannot wait for more. No organizing going on in this house (visiting my daughter in SC), she does not appreciate my “input”. Home Tuesday so hopefully will participate next week.
Congrats on the first Webisode.
Nothin’ like hiding your messsy drawer from guests only to post it for the entire internet. 😉
I kid’. Great job.
That irony is definitely not lost on me!
The extra s is for extra messsy. Oy.
My silverware drawer is probably the only drawer in my kitchen that is actually organized…. now if the plastics cabinet would only follow suit, we’d have no issues in the kitchen. I went to Target’s dollar spot and grabbed some of those pencil holders for a desk drawer (it was a 3 pack for $1) and use them in my silverware drawer – one for straws, one for plastic silverware for birthday parties, etc… However, if you figure out a great idea on what to do with all of these cookie cutters, I’m all ears! LOL Great job Nony!
I put all mine in a gallon-sized ziptop bag. If they don’t fit, get a larger ziptop storage bag. I’ve found them at the Dollar Tree recently, but Ziploc® makes them as well.
I was gifted a set of 101 (I know!) cookie cutters, plus I had a few others, so as you can imagine, that’s a LOT to store. First, I had them in a giant (2 gallon?) ziplock, but it was too full, so I moved them to a plastic storage box (16 gallon from Target – I know that, because I just checked all our current storage boxes for sizes so we can buy more of the same. Of course they all still have their store labels on them.) The cookie cutter box is now on the bottom shelf of my pantry with “sometimes” appliances like the mixer, food processor, crock pot, etc.
Um, that would be the 16 QUART box from Target. I do not have 16 GALLONS of cookie cutters.
Great job on your first vlog! You were made to do these, with all of your drama skillz! And you are so cute!! My silver ware drawer is my onyl organized drawer…when I put away the dishwasher. My husband puts stuff wherever he wants. I only have 4 drawers in my kitchen, so how to organize all of the plastic silverware (we hoard these so we don’t have to buy plastic stuff for our lunches) baggies, foil, parchment and pastic wrap into one drawer is kinda throwing me for a loop. Good idea to take everything out first instead of assuming it all should just fit!!
Loved the vlog. I have to admit on some of the other blogs I read when the writer has done a video it sometimes does not come off too well. I thought you were great and super adorable! Keep-em-coming! I see a video series on HGTV or maybe Comedy Central? in your future!
Love, love, love the vlog! This is a wonderful use of your theater skills. Keep ’em coming!
Oh, my this was GOOD! Do you know that you should be vah-logging all the time? Seriously.
Enjoy your week!!
I love it! “3” chopsticks, lol
I just opened our “junk” draw for a nightlight and found 5 empty wrappers! 2 Boxes of empty nightlight bulbs, 1 package of empty gum, 2 empty tape containers. REALLY? And the trash is right UNDER the drawer. wow
I too suffer from Time Passage Awareness Disorder. So glad I’m not alone! 😉 I’ve been aiming to make 2011 the year I finally get organized and have recently been extra motivated by the fact that my family is going to have to make a move from the South to Wisconsin. Having to ask, “Do I really want to have to unpack this and find a spot for it?” has made it A LOT easier to get rid of things! Found you @ Org Junkie’s link-up.
haha, I love your blog. Your forks are still trying to escape.