Cleaning Out Our Junk

Is it really April already? Where has these past few months gone? I know I haven't posted in a few months but life has been a little crazy around here. Training at work took me away for several weeks, then I caught the flu which put me down for a solid week. It hasn't been pretty over here! But, I am back and ready to blog my heart out :)

I have a few things to post about since it's been forever and a day but I am going to start with our junk. Extremely interesting right? Like most houses in America we have a drawer in the kitchen with is 100% used to hold junk everything we believe is important. This drawer/counter top on any given day normally looked like this

We use the garage door to enter our house daily, which puts you right in the kitchen. This little counter next to our fridge is the first table top we get too. Normally I pile the paper items (books I am currently reading if they aren't on my nook, mail, receipts). My husband drops everything on this counter (his keys, spare change, his pocket knife and normally any firearm accessories he may be working on).

The drawer below this counter is my drawer of shame! I know most households have one but this bothers me all the time. This is the catch all. I keep my candle lighters in here, loose pens/pencils, a notebook, card games, etc. It was driving me crazy! I had a no spend budget - I wanted to work with things already around the house.

I had these white storage trays, which I purchased from Walmart, that were not being used. They came two to a pack and they were $2.00 a piece.

I had three different sizes (you will see the third size in the drawer since I forgot to take a picture). I love these storage trays, I use them in a lot of my drawers just to keep things together.

I needed something to put on the counter that would hold B's stuff that normally is just sitting on the counter. I thought of this Ikea plant pot that was only $1.99, which I also already had on hand. I love these pots at Ikea because you can use them for virtually anything!

My first step was to clean out the drawer {duh, right?}. I also completely cleaned off the counter which isn't pictured. I promise I will get better with taking before and after pictures as I post more projects :)

Then I wiped down the drawer. Please tell me how dirt and loose staples get in a drawer that (1) never held dirt and (2) never housed staples.

I only placed the storage trays on one side to leave space for items that wouldn't fit in a tray. I have two slim trays, a larger rectangle, and two smaller square trays in the back.

Then I sorted through everything in the drawer. Most of it was true junk which could be thrown away. In the first slim tray I put all of our pens and pencils for easy access. The second tray is for my coupon scissors since I normally clip my coupons at the kitchen table and our mail opener. I love this mail opener, we don't always use it but it belonged to B's grandfather and he loves it so it stays. The larger tray is holding true miscellanous items (tape, scented oil for a diffuser, an unused cell phone because you never know when you will need a back up, and a few other things I simply couldn't decide what to do with). The two smaller trays in the back are used for (1) our phone charger, iPod charger, and nook charger since we normally use the counter above this drawer as our charging area and (2) two card games we like to keep handy. The right side of the drawer has enough space to hold a tape measure, a notebook for quick notes, and my two candle lighters.

For the counter, I added this coin counter B received as a christmas gift from one of his brothers last year, a photo of me and my mom, and the Ikea plant pot to hold B's items, which is working great! It's big enough to hold B's keys, lighter (yes, he is a smoker), pocket knife, sunglasses and cologne which he randomly puts on before he walks out the door.

It's been several weeks since this change and I can happily say it still looks like this! The coin jar is in a great place since we can just empty our pockets as soon as we get home. The coin jar counts it for us so that's a bonus ha-ha.

Another great thing about this little transformation is it was free since everything we already had on hand. If you didn't have any of these items, it would roughly cost you $9.00 ($6.00 on storage trays at Walmart, $2.00 for Ikea plant pot, $1.00 for the picture frame from the dollar tree). I'm not sure how much the coin jar cost since it was a christmas gift - I've seen them at Kohls and Walmart for no more than $6.00!

Have any of you been tackling junk drawers/cabinets lately? If so, I would love to see if you add a comment with a link to your blog!

P.S. You may notice from these pictures our kitchen is no longer the builder yellow. I will update the house pictures soon since some rooms have an updated look so check back soon!