Emptying my entire kitchen and then restoring everything has put me in a serious throwing away mood. I can’t believe the things I’ve kept. In the “junk” drawers alone, this is what I tossed:
• Pens that don’t work.
• Obsolete USB cords
• Buttons
• Pins and other promotional paraphernalia from my old job
• Rubber fittings to who-knows-what
• Brass fittings to who-knows-what
• Keys for who-knows-what
• Credit cards I’ve never used
• Business cards for businesses that no longer exist
• Rabies tags and ID tags for fur babies no longer with us
Of all the things in the above list we still couldn’t bring ourselves to toss the ID tags. Greg is keeping one as a key fob, and the other as a bookmark.
We found money too! Hidden underneath a stack of envelopes and scratch pads was $200! I also collected almost $25 in coins that had been tossed in there for the past eight years. Obviously, I need to clean junk drawers more often.
My drawers are now perfectly clean and organized. I have a set of three on one side of the kitchen. One holds all my office supplies like my address book, a business card folder, stamps, writing tools, stapler, tape, magnifying glass and scissors. The second is for medical supplies like bandages, syringes (for goats and dogs), and more scissors. The third drawer is my emergency drawer. I keep matches, lighters, flashlights, folding knives, and trash bags. It’s nearest the pass way so if power goes out, I can find a flashlight in the dark.
For the record, I keep a pair of scissors in almost every drawer in the kitchen. It drives me crazy if I need to cut something and can’t find them. I’m not naming name (Greg) but certain people sometimes don’t put things back after they’ve used them. This way bloodshed is kept to a minimum if I can find another pair quickly.
Despite the best intentions my cabinets didn’t get finished. Some of the doors were missing in the shipment. A couple were damaged, and one was too short. I have to wait for the manufacturer to build me new doors. I’ll post pictures once my kitchen is complete.
Still it’s finished enough to bring back all my supplies. The carpenter who redid my cabinets went above and beyond. I asked him if he could remove the built in microwave shelf and give me a full cabinet. He did, and then the company gave me the additional cabinet doors free. Then he gave me new shelving where there wasn’t any, and removed the wine glass racks that I never liked.
This gave me a HUGE amount of new cabinet space. There is so much space, I have entire cabinets with nothing in them! I went from bulging at the seams to light and airy space.
On top of this, Greg built me a pull out cabinet next to the refrigerator. I can’t wait to show you the pictures for that. This extra space is going to free up a big hunk of my pantry.
Whoever gets this house after us is going to think they died and went to cabinet heaven. It is that awesome.
It helps that I got rid of a lot of stuff. Aside from the things I tossed, we also hauled four big boxes of stuff that will either go to the next garage sale or got stored for the long term. Most of it is a mix of glassware, bowls, and duplicate pots and pans.
Emptying out the entire kitchen was not a pleasant task, but hey, I found $225, so I guess it was well worth it. As rarely as I clean out junk drawers, who knows when I would’ve found that money.
Have you ever found money by accident? Do you keep a coin jar for spare change? How often do you clean your junk drawers?
