Ask Lemmy

Every family I know has this drawer, sorry mate

How did you get in my house!?

(yes, we have this exact drawer, though I moved the scale to another drawer)

I lack the space for a drawer like this, instead this exists as a plastic tub in the kitchen cabinet under the sink.

In Yorkshire they call this a rammel drawer

I have several. It takes a few months before the order becomes chaos. I do know where to find my stuff though.

Your junk drawer game is weak. We have 3 of them in the kitchen and the least bad of them is worse than that.

Pretty hard to avoid the drawer. Maybe find a new home for that scale (maybe sideways in a deep drawer?), throw a few rarely used tools into a ziploc bag, and introduce a caddy or two to corral the small stuff.

Wow. Yours looks really clean. We have two of these drawers and they're maxed out double as full.

Yep we’ve got a large utensil drawer

We have a space for that in our cutlery drawer, as well as a basket of miscellanea in a shelf where it doesn't matter if they get dusty.

I have one and my parents have one

Only if you have extra drawer space to waste. Most beneficial would be to give a dedicated space to the scale

In reality you live in a junk drawer cozy. Just support the junk drawer and everything will probably be OK.

Every kitchen has this, but I'd work on your layout. You could put about 50% more gadgets in there.

Also, store the scale vertically somewhere for maximum efficiency

We had one when I grew up. Now that I'm living elsewhere with my own family we don't; we have two.

It's more of a "Junk Drawer" in my family. Just for things that have no relevant places or are easily categorized, but are important enough not to keep somewhere more out of the way. Always contains at least one item that makes it near impossible to open the drawer on first pull and requires manipulation to open. For my family, it's usually a hammer.

I have one of the drawers and I'd consider myself organized. I try to keep it organized with one of these rather large Ikea Stodja drawer organizers. I used to use silverware organizers but stumbled upon this thing, 14"x20". They come in other shapes and sizes too but is a lot handier than using a regular silverware organizer because the compartments are pretty large.

Pens and notepads/post-it notes in one, batteries and an Eneloop wall charger in another, hair ties/lip gloss/rubber bands in another, big compartment holds a roll of packing tape and various other tapes, and another slot has a couple pairs of scissors.

I'd recommend getting a larger organizer just so you can compartmentalize larger things together, something a silverware organizer usually can't accomplish

Every family has at least one packing drawer of course!

I sort of have 3 variations of this drawer. One is fully named “the junk drawer” and contains things like rubber bands, batteries, scissors, garden snips, things that are sort of odd one out in other spots, but I feel are still relevant to my kitchen. Then I have one that is this but specifically things used on the stove and for mixing. So that puts spatulas, whisks, and such into their own mess. Finally is the “kitchen gadgets” drawer which looks very similar to yours. No organizer tray because everything is odd shapes, but also honestly sees little enough use I don’t really mind digging through it.

She's right. Always.

I wouldn't put the scale in there but yes, miscellaneous drawer.

I also don't have that drawer, but I have a box next to the toolbox labeled "useful crap that aren't tools"

Think about it like Socrates, man. Of course there’s gonna be a category for things that don’t fit in any other categories.

If you already have a maxed out sharps drawer, then you probably don't actually need any of the knives in this drawer. Like how often do you actually use the pizza cutter? I just cut pizza with a chef knife. Or the egg cutter? How often is that used? Sometimes the answer is to go through all your drawers and see what can be tossed to make space for the things you actually do use.

I have three small awkward necessary crap drawers, and my apple slicer doesn't fit into them. But my kitchen is so small, I call in the galley (facetiously, it's not actually on a boat).

I’d say that every house has a junk drawer, but I wouldn’t call this a junk drawer. It mostly looks like random kitchen tools. I guess you’re both right, in a way.

Maybe what you need is a wall-mounted rack to hold some of your other stuff without taking up valuable counter space. For example, I’ve heard people swear by magnetic knife holders. You can probably find magnetic tool holders at a hardware store for less than you’d find knife holders at a store that specializes in kitchen stuff.

Or maybe just get some hooks. Perhaps some little shelves. Whatever. The point is, make the stuff you use most often more accessible, and use the freed-up space in other drawers to clean out this drawer. Then turn it into a proper junk drawer, with shit like loose rubber bands, half~dried superglue, an awkwardly shaped pen from a real estate salesperson, and a tape measure that’s branded with the logo of an NFL team for some reason.

Yes everyone has this drawer

Yep, this is a junk drawer at its nascent stage.

My mother got into the pampered chef selling bulldonkey when I was young, and despite the dozens of items we got from them, only four really stood out, and she still has three of them. The ice cream scoop (how hard is it to make a shaped chunk of metal, after all), the kitchen shears (which were actually good quality), the slap-chop before there was a slap-chop brand (the one that is now missing/broken), and the kitchen organizer thing for the countertop: pic related. It was great for the longer shaped things, like some of what you have in the drawer. If the drawer bothers you that much, consider something that goes on the countertop or on the wall (or even a hanging pot organizer, which I love above a kitchen island.