Sunday afternoon poll: Junk drawers

[sassenach]

Definition of junk drawer: a drawer in your house, often the kitchen, which holds a wide array of unrelated items. This drawer is not organized. If there are dividers, they are definitely not used (except that one week a year when you organize the junk drawer). When looking for a miscellaneous item, mom can often be heard asking, "Did you look in the junk drawer?" Does not have to be called the "junk drawer" but should have some name that indicates it's the designated place for stuff that has no home.

 

DD recently went to a friend's house and was amazed to discover that they don't have a junk drawer. They have an organized drawer, with many of the things we put in our junk drawer, but it was decidedly NOT a junk drawer.

[Guest]

We do. It is kind of to my chagrin, because I maintain a rep for being very organized, but this has started out as an organized drawer and has simply become...much less so. Originally, it had the boxes of spare checkbooks, sunglasses while not in use, the cup for collecting Box Tops for Education, and the Flea and Tick preventor for the pets. But, over time, if has amassed an assortment of beer huggies, iphone screen protectors, party favor tchotchkies, and who-knows-what-else. It is vaguely on my list of things to do, but it hasn’t happened yet.

[regentrude]

No.

There is one small drawer in the kitchen that holds miscellaneous items (stamps, rubber bands, labels,string, tape), but they are organized in little boxes, and items that don't belong in there are not put there.

All stuff has a home.

[ScoutTN]

Nope. Only because my kitchen is so small that we barely have room for absolutely necessary kitchen things.

[MEmama]

Nope.

[Chris in VA]

If I could post a picture, I would. 

Def a junk drawer. In the kitchen, wide, shallow drawer that holds things like tape, pens, directories, batteries, etc. 

[Carrie12345]

I don't have a junk drawer because I don't have enough drawers to spare one for junk!

[Seeking Squirrels]

Sorry, I had to vote "other". We do not have a junk drawer but it is decidedly NOT because I would never dream of it. It's because we only have a few drawers in our kitchen and they have to be used for kitchen things. We have had junk drawers in the past. Right now most of those misc. items are in a shoe organizer hanging in our front closet. It's much more organized this way than a junk drawer, but it's due to the nature of the many small pockets, not because we are amazingly organized. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

We have several.

 

LOL

 

 

[Loowit]

We had one growing up.  My mom kept a lot of stuff in it.  I have never had one as an adult.  Our apartments had too few drawers for one and I never really designated such a thing one we had a house.  We do have a desk area in our kitchen that accumulates "junk" but I try to clean it and organize at least once a month.

[rocassie]

We do, but it is somewhat organized.  I HATE, HATE digging through things to find something.  I have have a set of boxes to in my drawer that holds various things based on size.  DH on the other hand has various jars.  He starts a new one when the old one is full.  I have seen him dump out 10 jars before finding the item.

 

[GinaPagnato]

Not that I "would never dream of" having a junk drawer or anything, but we have enough drawers in our kitchen that all items are grouped according to need and function. So the one drawer that may *look* junky if I haven't straightened it recently is the one that hold pens, pencils, highlighters, sticky note pads, paperclips, rubber bands, and matches. Sometimes it gets messy, but we all know what's in it, and we all know to look there first if we need any of the aforementioned items.

 

So. Not a junk drawer in the pure sense.

[Pawz4me]

Yes we do, and we're probably about as organized and minimalistic (is that a word?) as a family can possibly be. Still, there seems to be a definite need for a space for frequently used but rather random stuff. We're typically all about organization, but it seems to not work well for that particular drawer. Too many odd things and random shapes. It's one of the very rare (and maybe only) instances where I've found that trying to be organized is less efficient than just throwing things in.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Pawz4me

[Mrs_JWM]

We definitely have one! We had one when I was growing up, and I LOVED dumping it out ever so often and routing wrong through the stuff. "Hey! THAT'S where this was!"

 

I do try to organize every few years now, which lasts for a few months...

 

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[happi duck]

Other:used to have one/not opposed

 

I got rid of our junk drawer because I really needed to use it for another purpose. (Spices!)

 

I have fond memories of the junk drawer in my childhood kitchen.

[sassenach]

I guess we have a junk drawer, but it’s pretty well organized. It’s just the home of small but necessary terms like rubber bands, bag clips, extra pacifiers, drawer liner, wet wipes, etc.

 

I don’t toss stuff in there indiscriminately, though. There’s a definite scheme.

It does not qualify as a junk drawer

[sassenach]

Sorry, I had to vote "other". We do not have a junk drawer but it is decidedly NOT because I would never dream of it. It's because we only have a few drawers in our kitchen and they have to be used for kitchen things. We have had junk drawers in the past. Right now most of those misc. items are in a shoe organizer hanging in our front closet. It's much more organized this way than a junk drawer, but it's due to the nature of the many small pockets, not because we are amazingly organized.

I’ll allow.

[Selkie]

We don't have a junk drawer because I like things neat and tidy. 

 

If it were up to the rest of my family, however, every drawer would be a junk drawer. ;)

[EMS83]

Other: I have themed miscellaneous drawers. So sort of a junk drawer, but only with kitchen stuff, or toys, or school stuff, or hardware stuff. A couple of these are actually boxes.

[wintermom]

No.

There is one small drawer in the kitchen that holds miscellaneous items (stamps, rubber bands, labels,string, tape), but they are organized in little boxes, and items that don't belong in there are not put there.

All stuff has a home.

 

Junk goes in a junk drawer. It is junk because it is unorganized and stuffed in there with no hope of surfacing again. The thing you describe is not a junk drawer. Thanks for coming out, though.  :lol:

 

Yes, all stuff has a home, even junk. It goes in a junk drawer. 

Edited January 15, 2018 by wintermom

[Raifta]

When we designed our kitchen, DH was insistent that we had to  have a junk drawer.  So we do.  I try to keep it less junky but he has a tendency to drop off tools there instead of taking them to the basement (cause, you know, stairs!).  Overall, though, I look there for certain specific items.  Instructions for kitchen appliances, Mr. Clean magic eraser, little sticky things you put on cupboards to keep them from slamming and assortment of random tools including the all important tape measure.  There's probably other stuff too that I have forgotten about.

[Tap]

My mom had the classic junk drawer. You never knew what you would find in there.

 

other....I don't have a junk drawer but I do have a spot that collects small bits and pieces of random things.  They are in jars on a shelf in the pantry, so definitely not a drawer...but definitely junk. LOL

 

 

Edited January 15, 2018 by Tap

[foxbridgeacademy]

We currently have 4 of them.  1 in the kitchen that is under utilized (meaning only 1/2 full) and 3 basket type in the cubbies of the console table.  Oh, wait another giant one in the coffee table that matches the console table.... it is supposed to hold blankets but right now has some tools and a broken laptop.

[Garga]

I might have small square footage and I might have no kitchen cabinets to speak of, but by gum I have drawers! I have loads of drawers! Nine in the dining room, seven in the kitchen, five in the livingroom, the list goes on and on.

 

And since I have so many drawers, I have been able to find a home for everything somewhere in one of those drawers. There might be unrelated items in a few of the drawers, but the items in there have permanent homes and are mostly in dividers or little boxes.

 

It’s my one housekeeping win and I’m proud of it. :)

 

ETA: Hang on.....dh has a junk drawer in his nightstand, but I don’t count that one since it’s only his. It’s not like there are communal items in that drawer.

Edited January 15, 2018 by Garga

[SamanthaCarter]

The top drawer of the office desk is probably the closest we have. This is our first house without a bona fife junk drawer.

 

 

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[Baseball mom]

Our whole house is a junk drawer.

 

Sorry grumpy about the messy house right now.

 

And we do have WAY to much junk but not a drawer for it.

[1GirlTwinBoys]

We have a very organized junk drawer.  It holds misc. tools, pens etc..

[hornblower]

we used to have a neat small junk wicker storage basket from Ikea that sat on a shelf in a closet. Just odds and ends, things that were in purgatory while we were looking for a missing part etc. 

Now we have a junk basement. 

[Tsuga]

We have a couple of utility drawers that I turn into junk drawers when I am tidying up and find things that are likely worth more than $5, but have no owner because I have asked all the kids and they insist that they "already picked up". But I can't in good conscience throw away, for example, my daughter's favorite fuzzy pen or my stepson's Rubik's screwdriver. So it all goes in the junk drawer, which I consider a kind option.

 

Then every six months my partner gets irritated that we have a junk drawer and puts it all away. And it all begins again.

[forty-two]

We don't really have a junk *drawer*, per se - some of our drawers are kind of messy, but only the things that live there go into them - they don't collect random junk.

 

What we do have is a shelf of horribleness :lol:. (Actually, we have a couple - one is the full-fledged shelf of horribleness; another, not-quite-as-bad-one is the shelf of semi-horribleness (yes, that is actually what I call it).). I cleaned out the original shelf of horribleness a few years back, and with furniture rearranging (and kids growing older) it was no longer a convenient resting to put whatever, especially whatevers that we didn't want toddlers getting into. But others grew up to take its place ;). (Although looking at the original shelf of horribleness, it's collected quite a few random things, mostly things I put out of the puppy's reach :lol:.)

Edited January 15, 2018 by forty-two

[Ausmumof3]

Not specifically. Some of the things have homes and others accumulate in random places because i designate one as home but then forget where the designated home was. Sometimes when I go to designate a place home for an item I even find similar items in the place already!!!

 

DH has basically an entire bedside table full of what looks like junk to me but maybe not to him. Also a closet mostly full of it. I know he has plans to sort it soon though.

[Melissa in Australia]

we have a drawer that may be a junk drawer bu your definition. it is not in the kitchen, but in the hallway

 

 it has in it

 

 tape, drawing pins ( thumb tacks to you guys), the nossels (sp?) from the sausage suffer, tooth picks, icy pole sticks, bait for the outside fly trap, those sticky tape fly trap thingies, kite string, beeswax leather conditioner, permanent marker ( that is where it is!), vicks vaper rub, shoe strings and a cord for a phone

[ErinE]

I couldn't pick either one, because we have a drawer that sometimes has things randomly thrown into it and other times things are neatly put away. I try to dump it out and organize it once a year, while doing periodic purges and tidying every month or so. I don't worry too much if it gets untidy because I know I'll take care of it when I have time.

[OneStepAtATime]

Couldn't pick anything but other because I never intend for there to be a junk drawer, it is certainly not my plan, but there is one drawer in the kitchen and one drawer in the living area that always end up that way.  I have come to accept that this is how our family functions.  We try to clean them out once a year or so.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Our whole house is a junk drawer.

 

Sorry grumpy about the messy house right now.

 

And we do have WAY to much junk but not a drawer for it.

 

Oh I have those days!

 

:grouphug:

[wintermom]

I just informed dh this morning that our closet is now officially a "junk room" so he can find an alternative location for clothes.  :lol:   He didn't sound 100% convinced.... yet. 

[Ellie]

Don't hate me, but I don't have a junk drawer.  :D

[sassenach]

Couldn't pick anything but other because I never intend for there to be a junk drawer, it is certainly not my plan, but there is one drawer in the kitchen and one drawer in the living area that always end up that way. I have come to accept that this is how our family functions. We try to clean them out once a year or so.

The main question was yes or no, the rest was me trying to be cheeky. So you would be a yes.

[Farrar]

I organize the junk drawer every year or two. It never takes.

[SKL]

We don't have a drawer that is intended to be for junk.

 

Whether we have any junk in our drawers - that's another question.  :P  I think some stuff is put in cubbies / drawers because the owner can't bear to part with it "yet."  Eventually it gets traded out for newer junk we can't "yet" part with.

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

Our whole house is a junk drawer.

 

Most days I kind of feel like this! But in reality, we have one in the bathroom that accidentally turned into a junk drawer and I just never seem to manage to clean it out. It's actually on my schedule for sometime in the next week or so. I also have a drawer in the kitchen that sort of looks like a junk drawer, but in reality it holds very specific things, and I know where to find them when I need them. So I voted "other"--I don't consider it a mandatory feature, but we have one nonetheless, and I wish we didn't (and soon we won't!). 

[Spryte]

Yes. We have a drawer with miscellaneous stuff that doesn’t have an obvious home elsewhere. I clean it out now and then, and get it organized, but it doesn’t last, I have to keep up with it,

 

There was an interesting piece I read somewhere that analyzed the contents of these types of drawers - most household throw in the same types of things. I think the level of organization might vary house to house, hence the designation “junk†in some, not in others.

 

Ours has the usual rubberbands, pens, super glue, string, etc, along with some random smoke bombs (yes, really) and random small tools that we keep in the kitchen.

[wintermom]

Yes. We have a drawer with miscellaneous stuff that doesn’t have an obvious home elsewhere. I clean it out now and then, and get it organized, but it doesn’t last, I have to keep up with it,

 

There was an interesting piece I read somewhere that analyzed the contents of these types of drawers - most household throw in the same types of things. I think the level of organization might vary house to house, hence the designation “junk†in some, not in others.

 

Ours has the usual rubberbands, pens, super glue, string, etc, along with some random smoke bombs (yes, really) and random small tools that we keep in the kitchen.

 

I think there needs to be a little more randomness and uselessness to the junk. Like old candy, some 5 year-old receipts, pieces of metal that you have no idea what it belongs to, a 10 year-old kid's meal toy from a fast food place. 

Edited January 15, 2018 by wintermom

[Spryte]

I think there needs to be a little more randomness and uselessness to the junk. Like old candy, some 5 year-old receipts, pieces of metal that you have no idea what it belongs to, a 10 year-old kid's meal toy from a fast food place.

Oh yes, that’s the classic junk drawer of my childhood! :)

 

And don’t forget the random, odd piece of “something†that looks important. You know, that knob or whatever that you just *know* that if you throw it away, will immediately be needed! Whatever it is will suddenly dawn on you, ha!

[ILiveInFlipFlops]

I think there needs to be a little more randomness and uselessness to the junk. Like old candy, some 5 year-old receipts, pieces of metal that you have no idea what it belongs to, a 10 year-old kid's meal toy from a fast food place. 

 

Have you been rummaging through my bathroom drawer?! Add three half-used birthday candle packs, a wrench and a couple of stripped screwdrivers, and a PedEgg or two, and you have my junk drawer!

[mellifera33]

We have a junk garage. If I cleaned it out I could actually park there, and not get wet bringing in groceries. It’s obviously nkt that important to me, since I haven’t done it yet.

[KungFuPanda]

I KNOW my drawer holds batteries, birthday candles, and the Happy Birthday sign. The drawer is full, however, and I couldn’t tell you without looking what else is in there.

[kbutton]

Other: I have themed miscellaneous drawers. So sort of a junk drawer, but only with kitchen stuff, or toys, or school stuff, or hardware stuff. A couple of these are actually boxes.

 

Ditto.

 

I miss the junk drawer of my childhood--it was awesome and well used (but still small). 

 

We don't have a good drawer for one here, and my DH wouldn't get the concept (I know because I have cleaned drawers he's been allowed to claim for himself--they are all junk drawers).

 

My kids both have a kid version though--they each have a miscellaneous bin for their odds and ends.

[HTRMom]

No junk drawer in the house. I do have some office supplies in a drawer with silverware in the kitchen, but it’s organized and I know what’s there.

 

There are junk drawers in the garage. Maybe all the drawers. If anything even makes it as far as a drawer. That’s DH’s domain.

 

 

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[ikslo]

I have a junk drawer to the immediate left of my fridge. Right above that is the junk cabinet. What can I say? The drawer was full. Stuff was too big to fit the drawer. I don’t like going in the cold garage in the winter. All of the above.

 

We do need the space, though. I should go clean those out.

 

Tomorrow.