Every Friday, we’re cleaning out a different area of the house. We’re being smart and keeping it simple so that we feel like we’ve accomplished a little home organization every single week.
Home Organization Week # 1: The kitchen drawers
What do cheese shredders, sippy cups, and bike bells have in common? They were all in our overly crowded kitchen drawers.
Sippy cups – for toddlers. The kids are both teenagers and in high school for goodness sake! Come on!
The kitchen drawers is where this idea sprang up. One of the drawers wouldn’t close over the holidays and I’m sure I was cursing about how we have too much stuff and someone needed to clean out the drawers. It was right then that I decided that we needed a plan.
This incident made me realize our entire house needed a “little cleaning out” and that if we started small, meaning just one drawer, we could tackle a different area every week.
Of course I couldn’t stop at one drawer…here’s what we did….
- With nine kitchen drawers, I tackled one drawer a day – and did two on the easy days. (Brad helped me on a couple drawers- and the one he felt most attached to – the junk drawer!)
- I took everything out of the drawers, shook the crumbs out, and wiped them down. (Follow the instructions for “National Match Up Day“)
- Nothing went into the trash – it all went into the recycling basket or the donation bag.
- The donation bag went to Goodwill and I got a tax receipt. By the end of this project, I hope to have 50 of those receipts. (A couple of areas need more than a week – trust me!)
- There’s nothing new going into the drawers. I don’t plan to replace anything I got rid of. My attitude is, “Less is More” and as hard as it is to stick to it, I am.
This is what came out of two drawers. The rest of the drawer contents were too ugly.
Now, it’s your turn. Go clean out your kitchen drawers – or at least one of them to start. Take it slow and but do a little every day. High fives all around!
What did you find in your kitchen drawer clean out?
Go Gingham related links:
Green living: once a month garbage collection
A free chair – that was rejected!
Green and frugal living – the sweet spot where green and frugal meet
A tray table with a slipcover – because tables need slipcovers, too
The “weekly home organization projects” – if you’ve missed a week
Go Gingham 
Love the reminder to start with ONE drawer. Too often the big picture “de-clutter” overwhelms me and I just don’t start anywhere.
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Baby steps are the way to go!! We all feel like winners when we accomplish something so keep the bar low….one drawer or so a day. Our kitchen only has 9 drawers so I felt like a winner 9 times last week! :)I felt especially good when all that ‘stuff’ went to Goodwill.
So glad you’re joining in, Susiqca.
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Nine kitchen drawers?!?! We only have two. I guess having a small house with little storage space helps keep things from getting too cluttered. 😉
Nevertheless, it’s always good to go through drawers. Inevitably there’s something I find that I don’t need and should get rid of.
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I just went through my spice drawer a few weeks ago and cleaned it out. Sometimes I find it hard to believe we’re actually using things out of these drawers to EAT with. Thank goodness for white blood cells is all I can say.
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We did a kitchen renovation in the fall so I was forced to go through our stuff and get rid of some of it. 2014 is the year I want to go through my desk and bedroom and de-stuff-ify.
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Thank you so much for this post. One of my goals for 2014 is to finally start decluttering and organizing as I go. But I’ve been feeling overwhelmed about it and uncertain of where to start. Kitchen drawers are the perfect place.
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Sara, I laughed so hard when I saw the sippy cup confession! Made me feel a lot better about the things hiding in my own drawers 😉
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