Drawer Organization
Home Storage Ideas for the Drawers in Your Organized Home

Say YES to drawer organization in your organized home.

Home storage ideas that can help you say goodbye to the junk drawer forever include using drawer dividers and other organizers to bring about order and control of drawer contents in the kitchen, the office and the bedroom.

Drawers are spaces too!

The OMS S-P-A-C-E model. and a few simple personal organization skills can end your drawer disorder!

You have a drawer in every room of the house so pick one and get started.

Strip

Empty the drawer completely.

Clean it. Empty out all the crumbs, and dust and then wipe it out!

line the drawer with drawer liner paper. This simply protects the drawer from damage and increases its lifespan. If you have a number of very small items in a shallow drawer then use the "non-slip" type of liner.

Now you have a beautiful drawer just waiting to be organized!

Tips for Maintaining an Organized Home

Reluctant to throw something away because you think you might need it?

Put the items that are not going back into the drawer into a box and label it with the date.

Within the next 6 months if you need any item in that box go and get it. Return it to the drawer after you have used it.

After 6 months time if there are still any items in the box get rid of them. They have been there for 6 months and you will never miss them.

Purge

Go through the items you took out and get rid of anything that does not work any more or you haven't used in six months.

Sort

Go through the items that are going back in this drawer and sort them by size. Long skinny items together, short fat ones together. You need to have the items sorted into similar sizes in order to assess what type of organization system or products will be the best.

Assess Your Needs

Once you have your stuff sorted by size, you can use drawer organizers to compartmentalize your drawers and keep things separated. The goal is to be able to open the drawer and pick up the item you need.

If you have to sort through items in the drawer to get to the one you need then you have too many items in that drawer.

Home Storage Ideas for the Drawer Challenged

You can get more drawer space by purchasing plastic storage drawers.

They are available in single units that stack on top of each other or as multiple drawer units.

You can also get counter top models which can come in handy for bathroom or closet organization. Small plastic storage drawers are perfect for this.

The measurements of the stuff going back into the drawer and the size of the drawer itself will determine the size, type and number of drawer organizers you need to purchase.

Get good measurements!

There is nothing worse that coming home with a new organizing product only to find that the long spatula (you use most often) won't fit into the new drawer organizer so once again you are cautioned to get good measurements so you can measure twice but purchase only once!

Also make sure you know the depth of the drawer. You do not want to purchase great organizers that are too tall for the drawer.

If your drawer is less than 3 inches (7.5cm) deep it is a very shallow drawer!

Containerize

Consider using dividers to create many different compartments within your drawer. There are even boxes and organizers that can accommodate a variety of drawer sizes. Expandable drawer organizers will change size to fit the space you need.

While there are a variety of products available don't limit yourself to specific products for drawer organization. Other home storage ideas for organizing this space include using clear plastic storage boxes, or even repurposing other items that you have around the house:

Shoe boxes can be inserted into drawers for an instant drawer organizer.
The boxes that your cheques come in from the bank make great organizers for pens and pencils.
plastic food storage containers with or without the lid make good containers for really small items like paper clips in the office or hair elastics in the bathroom.