Tutorial: Organizing Your Junk Drawer

Remember our tutorial a few posts ago on how to build a built-in utensil divider for your silverware drawer?  Ya know, this one?  Well, having my utensil divider built-in to my drawer has rocked my world.  So much, in fact, that I made a special trip to Home Depot to buy more melamine so that TJ could help me tackle my dreaded junk drawer.

I was so excited to get going on the project, that I forgot to take a "before" picture.  So, google image search has kindly provided me with a picture of someone else's junk drawer.

I can assure you that my drawer looked a lot like this, if not worse.  I swear to you, I was cleaning out that drawer and organizing it almost once a week and within a few hours, it looked like I had never touched it.  I thought about buying some plastic baskets to try to organize it, but I knew I'd never be able to get the arrangement just right with those baskets.

I started by taking everything out of my junk drawer (and throwing away all the junk I didn't really need).  I cleaned the drawer out, then I started slowing put things back in and trying to figure out an arrangement.  Once I got a section how I wanted it, I would send TJ down to the basement to cut me my piece of melamine to divide it.  Finally, we got it just how I wanted it.

Tutorial: Getting Rid of the Over-the-Door Hooks

I have a slight obsession with organization.  Lately, I've felt the need to finally cross of a couple of projects that have been on my to-do list TJ's honey-do list.  One of them was the silverware drawer, one is the cookie sheet cupboard (tutorial coming soon!), and then one was towel hooks for our bathrooms.

The towel hooks are such a small thing, but I was always surprised how much they bothered me.  There isn't enough room to hang more than a couple things on just one hook, if you buy the over-the-door hooks that hold a lot of stuff, they take up a lot of room.  Not only that, but all of the over-the-door hooks make it hard to open and close doors regularly.  Then, you have to worry about them sliding around and scratching the paint on the door.  Like I said, they are so small but I really can't stand them!  I decided there must be a better, and more permanent, solution to my towel problem.

It's really, really easy to find simple Hook Rails/Coat Hooks like the one pictured above, but there is a problem if you want to install them on a door.  Doors are hollow!  That means a regular drywall anchor won't work for holding the Hook Rail onto your door.  Also, a regular screw (like the ones they include with the Hook Rail) won't hold it onto a door either.  So, I decided to do a little research and.... ta da!

Look what I found... Hollow Door Anchors!  The solution to my problem.  Now, I could buy my Hook Rail and I had a safe way to anchor it to my bathroom doors.  Not only that, but these anchors hold 40 pounds so I knew they would be safe when my kids are trying to yank their towels off the rack.  I bought two Hook Rails (one for my bathroom and one for the kids' bathroom) so I only needed one pack of the Hollow Door Anchors.

Installation was a breeze!  I did it by myself and I had both installed in less than 15 minutes.

Tutorial: Custom Built-In Utensil Divider

Don't you hate those cheap plastic utensil inserts that go in your utensil drawer? They slide around every time you open the drawer and never fit quite right because they typically are one-size-fits-all. They are usually too shallow and you aren't able to fit very many utensils in each divider.  They also never look custom because they do not match the material of the inside of the drawer. Most of all, they are ugly!  Well, we decided to build a custom utensil divider to match the melamine that the drawer inside is made of. 

This project has been on my to-do list for a long time. It is such a simple project that it is easy to overlook, but it adds a customized feel to the kitchen drawer.

Cost: $5

Time: 1/2 to 1 hour

Difficulty: Easy

Tools Required

• Tape measure
• Table saw
• Miter saw
• Air Compressor
• 18 gauge pneumatic brad nail gun

 Lumber and Materials

• Rubbermaid 10 in. x 36 in. White Shelf (this is a white melamine shelf with edging on all sides)
  Click here to see the shelf we bought.  Just a note, in store we paid about $5.36.

Consumable

• 1 1/4” 18 gauge brad nails 

Steps:

1. Measure the Drawer

Measure the interior dimensions of the drawer. Also, measure the depth of the drawer. Draw out your desired configuration.  One tip:  Make sure you make the dividers deep enough to hold your desired amount of utensils, but not so deep that they are hard to grab out once it's finished.

2. Rip-Cut the Melamine

After you figure the drawer depth and then figure your desired depth (either flush or recessed a little bit), set the table saw fence at the desired length. Make sure you keep one of the finished edges on your rip cuts. Cut the 10 inch piece into three pieces (the middle piece will be thrown away - the two sides will be used for the dividers).  Remember, you will always want the pretty melamine side showing and not the cut edge.

If you don't have access to a table saw, you could get away with cutting the wood with a circular saw or a jig-saw.  You would need to measure out the whole length to cut, clamp your wood, and then cut away.  Doing it this way won't get your cuts as straight and the pieces may not sit as flush on the bottom of the drawer, but it would be better than nothing!

3. Cross-Cut the Rips into the Desired Lengths

Measure, mark and cut the two pieces into the desired lengths (in our case, we had 4 pieces at 11 inches, 1 at 13 1/2 inches and 1 at 9 inches). We actually put the bottom five pieces in the drawer and then measured the dimension for the final top divider. We just barely had enough material to finish. If you have longer lengths or more pieces, you may need a long piece of the melamine. 

Here are our pieces (minus the 9 inch piece) after they were all cut and ready to be nailed into the drawer.