Decluttering Declared: Week 2 of 52 — Dejunking the Junk Drawer

The decluttering project for week 2 of 52 was the junk drawer under the microwave. (Actually, it’s junk drawer #1 of 2 there.)

I was forced to tackle this project mainly because the backs of both of the junk drawers (and the silverware drawer, too) break apart from the drawer and items inside fall through the cracks (literally) onto the kitchen shelves below. Things also get wedged in that space, making the gap bigger yet.

I’ve tried to fix the drawers by gluing them and by nailing them together, to no avail. Even took them to a woodwork place and paid $60 each for them to be repaired, but they still break apart.

Since getting new kitchen cabinets isn’t in my budget… I solved the problem temporarily by cutting pieces of cardboard and taping them into the front and back of the drawer, to provide a solid “wall” that items inside can’t fall through.

It’s not pretty, but it’s working so far. If you have an idea for another way to fix this, please let me know!

When I dumped the contents of the drawer into a laundry basket, the volume of stuff seemed much larger than the space in the drawer was! How could that be?

Spent an hour or two culling through everything, throwing away lots of things — including some coupons that expired in 2009 — and putting like items together. Also took a few items to the garage for the Goodwill donation crate.

Placed the remaining items back in the drawer — and, voila! It looks much, much better!

Related blog posts:

Decluttering Debut: The First in a Series of 52 Dejunking Adventures