Ask Lemmy

I want to know how OP would like this drawer to look instead. Random kitchen utensils always seem to get shoved in a drawer like this

At my parents we had a similar drawer with miscellaneous stuff but it was organised so it looked somewhat tidy. Currently I don't have a drawer like this, cuz I have a tiny kitchen with only one drawer which is reserved for cutlery.

There are probably houses out there somewhere that do not have one of these, but I have never encountered one. They appear with the same frequency as 10 million dollar lottery tickets.

Yes, all homes have this drawer. Only way to get rid of it is to move. Just leave it all behind.

Wife's right. This is an example of the pareto principle. 80% of your shit fits in 20% of the categories needed to properly organize your shit. 80% of the needed categories account for only 20% of your shit. 20% of your shit (and 80% of the needed categories) are in that drawer.

To an extent, we always had a junk drawer. Over the years it got smaller and more organized. Utinsels have an actual drawer for them all. So no pizza cutter in our junk drawer anymore. Almost everything in your picture has a spot for us.

Here's our junk drawer now.

She's right. Always.

Ahh. The good ole junk drawer.

I've had one in every home I've lived, even when I was the minor.

Wife says the same.

At first I was thinking I don't have this drawer, but I suppose I have a version of it. Anything that doesn't get used weekly goes into a misc. box that I store in the pantry to keep clutter out of drawers, e.g. icing spatula, fat separator, some baking items, etc.

My knives are upright on my counter and my scale is in my cabinet though, so that also frees up space. A few trays in your drawer might help?

If you don’t have this drawer you simply don’t have drawers.

I have this drawer.

Correct, we have this drawer. And what sucks is that it has been broken for about 20 years.

I have whole cabinets like this

Mine is more organised (without dividers, similar stuff simply each has its own space) and still roughly looks like yours.

We have a miscellaneous drawer of utensils and kitchen tools. Also another drawer of non-kitchen stuff that's just "the kitchen drawer" - screwdrivers, pliers, paper clips, rubber bands, magnets, ruler, magnifying glass.., not exactly "organized" but randomly deposited in compartments of an old generic drawer organizer so at least it's not just a pile. We just call it "the drawer".

My wife got snap apart customizable drawer organizers and it's a big difference. She showed me the way.

The only reason I don't have such a drawer, is an overall lack of drawers in my house, don't really have one to spare to be a junk drawer.

Which is a damn shame because I could really use a drawer to throw some miscellaneous odds and hands that don't have any other designated place to live.

I by myself only have a single drawer(don't need/have more) but for my parents this is devinetively true. They have one for metal pieces, one for plastic pieces and one for cutlery. The fourth drawer is for all the stuff that isn't really needed that often or simply to big to be put into one of the other drawers.

We have 2 drawers like that. What's the problem with it if you don't have a better place to put that shit?

Proud junk drawer owner checking in.

One drawer? We have house full of these, cupboards and a garage XD

We don't have one, we have multiple

We have this drawer.

Bachelor here, and I do indeed have a random shit drawer. As did my family when I was growing up.

I have 2 of these drawers. 1 in the kitchen and 1 in the garage.

I’ve got four of those.

Edit: wait, that’s a useful disorganized kitchen drawer. I’ve got two. I should do something about my four junk drawers, and today’s the day, goddammit!

Yeah, everyone has such a drawer. But what is that green thing at the top? Something for baking?

It can be sorted quite nicely if you get an organiser division thingy. Even if you're only going to keep one thing in each section, it's nice to have each thing in its own place. The difficulty with that is remembering where it's supposed to be, and that it takes more space.

A little basket is suitable for keeping most of those things if you simply accept that them being in the same basket is actually the correct placement for them.

as others have said, "yes" most people have the misfit drawer. We always called it the "horrible drawer_ because ladles and can openers and things would often catch and make it hard to open. I say embrace it, everyone deserves love even if not everyone fits in perfectly

Close the drawer?

And yes there's always a bucket drawer for things that can't be categorized