Please help resolve a disagreement in our home
Please help resolve a disagreement in our home
My wife says every family has this drawer. I do not believe every family has this drawer. Do you have this drawer? Do you know a good solution to this drawer?
We have a silverware drawer, organized, maxed out. A sharps drawer, organized, maxed out. Ziplocs, organized, maxed out. Bbq tools and oven mitts, organized, maxed out. But all this shit has no particular category so fuck me right. I gotta have an awkward necessary crap drawer. Maybe I should post all my drawers and crowdsource me some sense into my kitchen.
Yes, every household in the developed world has a drawer like this. It's for things that you hardly need or never need, but might do, one day, probably (not).
Why it bothers me: in a more sane world, this stuff would be shared. Every community would have a junk tool shed - not every household of 4 people, or 2 people, or (increasingly) one person. It's reminiscent of that drill statistic: the average electric drill is used for 7 minutes in its lifetime. This is madness. Our planet is overflowing with junk. As a species we need to be smarter.
Yes. Most kitchens have a junk drawer. This is often where the household hammer is kept, among other random things.
Compromise in marriage means not organizing everything to death and allowing your partner to maintain some jumbled spaces. A junk drawer is organized, out of sight chaos that still maintains a certain logic.
We’ve also floated the idea that not having a junk drawer in the kitchen may be a marker of psychopathy. I jest, but also not. Just know, junk drawers are common, diverse, and almost as expected as silverware drawers.
Every family has this drawer
I don't get why it bothers you, well, maybe it's not a serious disagreement idk.
Yep, we all do. Although you might be going a little far in putting the food scale in there.
its the miscellaneous drawer, its normal, we have a whole misc cabinet.
3d printed some Gridfinity stuff and fixed a couple of these drawers. The rest are under way.
Correct, we have this drawer. And what sucks is that it has been broken for about 20 years.
At my parents we had a similar drawer with miscellaneous stuff but it was organised so it looked somewhat tidy. Currently I don't have a drawer like this, cuz I have a tiny kitchen with only one drawer which is reserved for cutlery.
Every family has this drawer
Not in the kitchen but I have a (very large) one for electronics and batteries and it's the worst. Tools and screws. Office supplies.
This kitchen one you could neat up a bit if it really annoys you. Put the scales in a cupboard upright against the side. Maybe get a nicer scale, that one looks naff. Trash the salad shears. What a terrible idea. Put the pizza / dough metal thingie on a wall mounted magnet for knives and stuff. Maybe put some of the other metal stuff there idk. Everything else is pretty small so you can put in dividers for that. The grater and ladle go in the same compartment.
Unless of course you think your wife should tidy up this drawer in which case you can just absolutely fuck off. Into the ocean. Die and get eaten by scavengers.
Edit: oh, that's a meat tenderiser, not a ladle. Everything else stands.
The misc tools drawer? I have one that's overflowing. My parents have multiple drawers and cabinets of this.
That one drawer won't look messy, if every drawer looks like this. *taps forehead *
Families only have one drawer like this?? How do they manage?
I have no drawers that are not this drawer.
We have that drawer. Two of them in fact.
We don't have one, we have multiple
I had way too many of these drawers 🫠
I regrettably also have this drawer.
Attempts at cleaning it usually end up with the drawer now being somewhere else, but it clings to life somehow.
I think they're just a fact of life at this point.
The only reason I don't have such a drawer, is an overall lack of drawers in my house, don't really have one to spare to be a junk drawer.
Which is a damn shame because I could really use a drawer to throw some miscellaneous odds and hands that don't have any other designated place to live.
Ours is a little more organized with dividers, but it doesn't look much better. Everyone I know has a drawer like that. I'd take the scale out and put it on a shelf. Scales are delicate.
PS, we have the exact same can opener, pizza roller, and grater as you guys.
What do you mean? This is organized! And I have such a drawer too. This is the collection of slightly large kitchen tools that are not large enough to place them in the cupboard.
Whether every family has this drawer or not, I wouldn't know, so I'm not very helpful with settling your argument. I'd bet, every family has this drawer though. Because everyone must have those kinds of utensils, and there's no other logical place to store them. Some people hang some of them on the wall, but even then, there are some that cannot be hung on the wall. Those go into this drawer.
What?
I don't have this drawer. I have several drawers organised by use. Baking, cooking, eating, etc. All are barely organised.
Yes, and as others have mentioned, the scale sits on the counter since it's delicate.
Definitely got one of those.
This is not a junk drawer, there are no coins or condiment packets.
This looks to be a kitchen accessories drawer although I'm unsure why you have a pill cutter in there.
The only surprise is that your family didn't have this drawer, apparently?
Mine is more organised (without dividers, similar stuff simply each has its own space) and still roughly looks like yours.
It's the miscellaneous utensil drawer. We have 2. Up top for common ones like can opener, corkscrew... big one on floor for the lesser used ones like rolling pin, flour sifter, hand mixer....
If you are arguing over this, don't. Not worth it because there's no better answer unless you have a millionaire mansion with a gazillion drawers
We have a miscellaneous drawer of utensils and kitchen tools. Also another drawer of non-kitchen stuff that's just "the kitchen drawer" - screwdrivers, pliers, paper clips, rubber bands, magnets, ruler, magnifying glass.., not exactly "organized" but randomly deposited in compartments of an old generic drawer organizer so at least it's not just a pile. We just call it "the drawer".
Bachelor here, and I do indeed have a random shit drawer. As did my family when I was growing up.
As others have said, this isn't even a junk drawer, this is the miscellaneous kitchen tools drawer. My homes have always had one of them plus an actual kunk drawer full of keys, batteries, loose pens and caps, tape, rubber bands, stamps, and lighters. This thing is organized and coherent and i jave no clue what your complaint is.
You've lost this one, and if this was a hill you were prepared to die on I would get ready to lose a lot more.
Ahh. The good ole junk drawer.
I've had one in every home I've lived, even when I was the minor.
Wife says the same.
Junk drawer. Yes, everyone has one.
We have a junk room. LOL.
im afraid that everyone has the forbidden drawer. the drawer that should never be opened except as a last ditch effort to find that one appliance that seems to elude you in every other drawer. you can try to destroy the drawer, but it will always come back in some form.
Yep.
My family has a junk home, not just a drawer :)
That drawer is literally fundamental to every single type of organizational system.
You cannot possibly hope to organize an infinite set of random items without having some big tent random chunks. that's what a junk drawer is. In your case though it looks like you have items that either you use regularly enough to find a dedicated spot for or should throw out.
I have no drawers but at least one box per room for this purpose
Of course I have that drawer. Why do you need a solution? What's the problem?
Yes, everyone has this
I wish my drawer was that empty.
No drawer. Probably due to the kitchen layout, we don't have smaller drawers, so the tools and such go into their own container.
Have you ever visited other people's kitchens? Everyone has that drawer.
Every family afaik has at least one of these drawers. Just accept it and live your life.
as others have said, "yes" most people have the misfit drawer. We always called it the "horrible drawer_ because ladles and can openers and things would often catch and make it hard to open. I say embrace it, everyone deserves love even if not everyone fits in perfectly
Yes, every family I've ever known has had a drawer with bulky oversized kitchen utensils and gadgets. The harder you try to organize these things, the more you will realize that you'd just end up with an entire drawer taken up by a single pizza cutter, garlic press, or zester. Theoretically, if you had enough storage space in your kitchen you could do that, but these things are used so infrequently that they either get shoved into one drawer which fully takes up that one space with disorganized chaos, or placed in a receptacle of some sort to sit on the countertop for when you need it, which is ugly and takes up then takes up the counter space instead.
If you don’t have this drawer you simply don’t have drawers.
Close the drawer?
And yes there's always a bucket drawer for things that can't be categorized
Hate to say it, but just about everyone I know has a junk drawer, myself included. Same as you with the other drawers, organized to the max, but the junk drawer will always be the junk drawer.
Everyone has that drawer. You can tidy it with spacers to make it look a bit less hectic but it will still be that drawer full of random specialty shit.
We have 2 drawers like that. What's the problem with it if you don't have a better place to put that shit?
I'd filter out metal things that has handles like this pizza cutter and meat hammer and try to give them some sort of a stand or a magnet surface to stick them on.
In my house it’s a whole room instead of just a drawer.
It's your house's shrine to Anoia. Rattle it every once in a while.
Yeah, I've got that drawer
Where else would you sort the strange kitchen tools?
They don't belong anywhere in particular, so they are clumped together.
We have that drawer, plus a bowl in a cabinet full of stuff like that.
This isn't a true junk drawer in my mind because it looks to be all cooking implements. I have a junk drawer, but it contains like rubber bands, rando pencils, gum, etc.
I wouldn't put the scale in there but yes, miscellaneous drawer.
I wish I could open mine.
Yup. That math maths.
Every home has that drawer. What is the problem that needs a solution?
Every household, family or sole occupant, has this drawer. Sometimes there are more than one of these.
Looks like a junk drawer or a multi purpose drawer in any kitchen. There is often one near the sink. In some larger cabinet sets, the small drawer like that is on the end. But it varies where everyone has it. Maybe all the decent sized kitchens do.
My work does one of those round robin steal it gift exchanges. One of my coworkers would just dump her junk drawer into a bag. It had the best stuff!
Sorry man but I have to side with your wife here. We have even one such junk drawer per room.
- In the kitchen with scissors, jar opener, potato peeler, nut cracker, sticks, tooth picks...
- In the living room with matches, candles, coasters, birthday decoration, fertilizer for house plants, ...
- In the bedroom we even have one per person with protective gear for sports, single socks that have their partner missing, scarves, baseball cap, luggage straps, ...
Could go on with bathroom, laundry room etc. Junk drawers for the win!
We have this drawer, maybe 2. My parents recently thinned and organized theirs. You can get cut-to-fit drawer Inserts if it bothers you.
We have several of those drawers.
You can at least make some compartments so it's not all jumbled together
But yes, I do have a couple of those drawers
Everyone I've ever known personally has a "junk drawer." It's where various random doodads and thingamajigs go when they don't neatly fit any other category. And batteries.
I think there are some sharp as well as blunt instruments that can be used to help resolving that disagreement.
I have this drawer, and also the junk drawer. This is the correct solution to 'uncommonly used tools of an awkward shape'
I'm sorry you had to find out this way.
You lost this one.. They've even written songs about it....
I have one and my parents have one
In Yorkshire they call this a rammel drawer
I have that drawer, a bit more full tho.
It's the one where everything is oddly shaped and can't stack easily.
Every family I know has this drawer, sorry mate
that drawer is a small scale representation of my home.
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
I have several. It takes a few months before the order becomes chaos. I do know where to find my stuff though.
How did you get in my house!?
(yes, we have this exact drawer, though I moved the scale to another drawer)
Everyone has that, except for my parents, its not just a drawer, but the entire basement floor. Filled. With. Junk.
😕
Technically, mine isn't a drawer, it's a shoebox tucked under the coffee table, but yes.
We had one when I grew up. Now that I'm living elsewhere with my own family we don't; we have two.
Yep we’ve got a large utensil drawer
Every family without a gigantic kitchen has that drawer.
I have the contents of that drawer in about 4 drawers and 2 cabinets. I have so many cabinets, I don't even have things in some of them and I have instant pots, a tortilla maker and sourdough proofing tools
However, I do have an oversized drawer that has a l lot of stuff in there like the funnels and tenderizer, but it has no sharps in it, and no scale.
Think about it like Socrates, man. Of course there’s gonna be a category for things that don’t fit in any other categories.
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.
Your junk drawer game is weak. We have 3 of them in the kitchen and the least bad of them is worse than that.
This is very common. If you really must "solve" it, the solution world be a shadow box layout. You empty it, lay stuff down where you want it, then take a picture or trace the shapes onto paper. Then model and 3d print an insert to give everything a dedicated cutout or cut it from foam or mill it from wood. This is what folks do in workshops. I've never seen it for a kitchen large utensil drawer, but that's what to do if you must.
Every family has a junk drawer. Some have junk rooms. The cursed have junk houses.
We have essentially the same drawer but with no scale and more ladies, measuring spoons, etc.
I'd probably put that scale somewhere else since it's a precision device, and it can't be too healthy for it to live like that.
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
I'm too anal about cleanliness and organization, my house typically doesn't have a drawer like this. My favorite mantra in the home, which my chronically disorganized wife is tired of hearing me repeat, is "a place for everything and everything in its place."
However. I inherited my childhood home when my dad passed away this year (my wife and I had already been living here for a few years, in a separate apartment in the house) and my dad had a junk drawer like this. As a matter of fact, my dad was extremely messy and almost every drawer in his house looks like this. It's probably the reason I'm so anal about organization in my life; having to grow up in a constantly messy home.
Growing up in this house, though, my family always had 2 drawers side-by-side in the kitchen which were always filled with random junk. They're still here. I haven't gotten to them yet. So yes, my current house has a couple junk drawers. But if I have my way, they will be organized and cleared out. If there's going to be any messy containers filled with miscellaneous junk in the house, it'll be boxes stored in the garage or basement - not a random drawer.
Bench / pastry scraper next to the end grain cutting board on counter (that's how I clean it most often). Microplane and pizza cutter (Italian chef knife) get hung. Funnel covers a teacup protecting it's rare use from excess dust / atomized oils in the kitchen. Garlic press is a waste of money when you have knife skills. -Citrus juicer likewise (cut 1/3 slabs around the core using the geometry to make squeezing efficient).
Even the community kitchen I use has one of these...
Brother, it is the junk drawer that keeps you sane. For trying to organize everything is impossible.
every family has a drawer like that, mine has two
Yes/no. We dont have a designated junk drawer, but theres one specific drawer we happen to throw random things into. I clean it out maybe twice a year during one of my adhd fueled hyper cleaning sessions.
Consider a spring loaded drawer divider. Keeping everything from sloshing around can make a surprising amount of space.
My drawer in the image used to be a nightmare. Everything used to move around and it would jam when opening sometimes. Adding dividers got it organized enough to leave a third of it free, which is now the rightmost section that's filled with tea.
It's been over a year and I still feel a small sense of joy when I open it sometimes. There's still messes of junk in the back left and right, but they stay put.
Most of my drawers are junk drawers. IDK how I find anything
Sepparate utensils into three groups. Prep and baking tools should be near the largest counter space. Cooking tools should be near the stove. Single use tools should be near the curb.
This is all of the drawers in our kitchen.
Planer, pizza cutter, egg cutter, and scraper go in the knife drawer. Funnel goes with measuring cups, scale goes on the counter or take the stuff out from under it so it sits flat. Garlic press and that chacram looking thing go in the trash.
In our house this is similar to the spoons drawer, the drawer that holds all the stirring utensils for cooking.
We don't have one.
If something isn't important enough to have a specific place, it isn't important enough to own.
