Dreamy Junk Drawers
{I love to organize}
Love the challenge of making things fit in a new kitchen (a challenge I faced 8 times in Singapore alone), tearing apart closets, arranging the contents of drawers. Cleaning out, sorting out and chucking out — so liberating, so… satisfactory. Mind you, the urge to do this doesn’t come up often, and when it does I respect it and take advantage. I find it usually does, not during the traditional Spring (cleaning) time, when I’m more concerned with the garden or kayaking, but just after the Christmas decorations have been put away, right after New Year’s. What better way to make good use of a snow day and free up more time in the warm weather when nothing house-related ever gets done?
So on January 7th I find myself re-watching The Matrix (Wachowskis 1999), an assignment for my SciFi Cinema: Technology, Genre and Culture class and addressing the chaotic crapfest that is my kitchen junk drawer.
Blessed as I am with two junk drawers, the task is doubly craptastic, but armed with my Marie Kondo-esque mantra of do I love it? do I need it? — I’m up to the task.
And like Marie Kondo, I’m a big fan of dumping the whole lot out and basically starting from scratch, there’s just no place for half measures with this task. So, here we go…
Before: Here’s Lefty, could be worse I suppose
Before: Righty, a mixed-up melange of miscellaneous mayhem
Next comes the fun part! The entire mess gets dumped out and the interior of the drawers wiped clean. Here’s what we have to deal with:
You can tell a lot about people from their junk drawers. Glimpses of their every day lives (glue, lint rollers) and dreams (french leaves and satin ribbons). I even had aspirations of creating a coffee table book of nothing but photos of junk drawers. They are like little windows to the soul hiding in plain sight.
Working from left to right, the sorting begins. Another nod to Marie Kondo, (is anyone watching her new Netflix show?) I’m a big fan of grouping like objects and containing them with inverted box tops or fancier store bough organizers. String only belongs in one place. Tape, nails, glue. One place and one place only; that way it will most likely be put back in the right place and easier to find later. Remember that scene in Gone With the Wind, when the Yankees were coming to Atlanta and Melanie was having her baby at home with only Scarlett and Prissy to deliver her? Well, I do…
“Build a fire in the stove and keep hot water boiling in the kettle. And bring up all the towels you can find and that ball of twine. And get me the scissors. Don’t come telling me you can’t find them. Get them and get them quick. Now hurry.”
OK, back to the task at hand. Some of the existing organizers got ruined with various goops so they got pitched. No worries, little boxes will do, old plastic containers, take away trays, etc.
Here’s the near midway point; it goes much quicker than you might think.
On the left, items destined for the trash or recycle bin. On the right, the items that still need sorting. The rest is finding its way into the drawers.
Lefty is shaping up. A well-placed rubber band can keep the pesky ribbons from unravelling, decidedly not tidy.
As you can tell I am a closeted (drawered?) ribbon fetishist. I make no apologies. Christmas packages at my house always have a bit of ribbon, any gift really, which is why I keep so much handy. Singapore has a great ribbon store on Arab Street, Kin Soon. So many happy hours spent there, sweating amongst the satin, grimacing amongst the grosgrain.
Kin Soon, racks of rapturous ribbon
Alrighty, all done. Here are the after photos:
Lefty, lookin’ good! Definitely a more artistic, left-brained assortment of stuff. You may notice in the back (or the top of the photo) there are four life-sized marble eggs. These are the first, if not one of the first decorative items I ever bought and I have an unwavering affection for them. I have kept these funny little things, that I bought so many years ago at Pier One in Milford, because they bring me joy — so they have a place in the drawer!
Righty, the more pragmatic and practical!
Some items were redeployed — I found 5 hammers in this drawer! And a lot got recycled or thrown out. You have to be ruthless. Go into this with the idea that you are going to be ruthless. A few items (those French leaves) were set aside for GoodWill. So, 71 minutes later, the deed is done. Hooray for me!
