Want an inexpensive way to organize your junk drawer? Use recycled boxes!

Is your junk drawer a total mess? Well, mine was, and I am a professional organizer.

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I had tried in the past to organize my junk drawer using silverware trays, and they were okay, but they were too small and slid around inside the drawer (and since nothing had an obvious designated place, when the kids put something in the drawer they just put it in the front, so it got harder and harder to find anything).

So, I finally found an easy way to re-organize my junk drawer without spending any extra money and did some recycling, to boot! 

Here is what our junk drawer looked like.  Messy, even with the silverware trays…sigh.

I decided we needed make spaces for each item, so they would be easier to find. After all, that is what I tell my clients all the time.

A place for everything and everything in its place.

Our solution to keep it organized? Empty boxes!

I saw lots of great pins on Pinterest where people recycled cardboard boxes into all kinds of other things, so that’s what we did.

Start saving those cereal, tissue, and pre-packaged cardboard boxes and small plastic butter and yogurt tubs.

We are a family of 5, with 3 teenagers, so it really didn’t take that long to save up that many boxes! I just kept an extra laundry basket out in the garage and stored the sizes I thought would work best, not too big, not too small.  

We do try to eat healthy, but yes, we do have junk food, too.  Don’t judge us based on the boxes you see 🙂

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In the meantime, go through all the stuff in the junk drawer and organize and purge!

You know, the locks that you lost the keys for, the broken pencils, the 300 leftover Allen wrenches (that are all the same size) from all the furniture you have put together over the years, etc. What did we discover? Lo and behold! We found 4 rolls of transparent tape! Who knew? Not us, obviously!

We also have enough birthday candles and matches to last for several generations. So it really made a difference to go through everything and reorganize it!

Measure the height of the junk drawer and cut down all the boxes to fit.

We used a ruler, a Sharpie, and a utility knife to cut them all down to just below the drawer height to make sure they didn’t catch when opening and closing the drawer, then I set my engineer-minded husband and son to work fitting all the boxes into the drawer.

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Arrange the boxes in the drawer so they use all the space.

Otherwise, they will slide around and drive you crazy!  I think my guys did an excellent job fitting them all in the drawer just like a jigsaw puzzle!

I did not tape them all together because they fit nice and tight and I think it makes it easier if I want to take, say, the whole box of rubber bands for a project, but you could tape them all together and make it into one unit, too.

Then the fun part – fill them up!

Since I had already purged everything from the drawer, I looked at what was left and grouped like items together. Transparent tape and double-sided tape went in one box, all the suction cups were in another box,  as were all the light timers, twistie ties, felt chair feet pads, etc.

Group them how it makes sense to you so you can find things easily.

Lastly, admire your handiwork and see everything at a glance.

It is an inexpensive way to get customized storage for your junk drawer using boxes you already have, and it’s fun to arrange them in the drawer, too.

Try it yourself and let me know how it goes!

~ Pam

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Looking for other ways to use cardboard boxes? Try these: Awesome ways to recycle cereal boxes!