Drawer organization – or lack thereof – getting you down? These simple tips and tricks will teach you exactly what you need to do to keep them organized from now on!
If you’re anything like me, you’ve got spaces in your home that look pretty organized from the outside and then you open the draw and BAM! You’re hit with all the drama that is disorganized drawers.
Tell me I’m not alone here, right?
I’ve been working on ways to organize every drawer in your house and I’m doing my best to help you with the tips and tricks that I’ve learned along the way!
How to Organize Dresser Drawers
1. The Konmari Folding Method
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, I’m sure that you’ve heard of the Konmari folding method. In case you haven’t, let me give a little bit of an explanation.
The Konmari folding method is a way of folding your clothes for maximum room in your drawers.
She has a way for folding quite literally every piece of clothing in your dressers – shirts, pants, shorts, and even your undergarments.
Who knew you could fold bras?!
The most used version of her method is the vertical filing that works great for tops and sweaters.
It can be a little tricky to figure out at first (especially with sweaters) but once you have the hang of it, it’s a truly remarkable system.
Not only does this system ensure that you can see every item in your drawer but it quickly shows you items you never wear, making it easier to know what to purge and declutter in the future.
2. Drawer Dividers
Drawer dividers (I like these ones) work hand-in-hand with the Konmari method to streamline those dresser drawers.
By keeping little “lanes” in each drawer, you actually carve out more space for each type of garment.
I used them in my nursery closet organization and they were a huge help for all the little baby items.
For smaller items like underwear, belts and bras, fabric drawer bins are perfect to create custom spaces within your drawers.
How To Organize Kitchen Drawers
When we remodeled our kitchen, we opted for almost all drawers for the base cabinets. I quickly learned however, that without an organization system in place, just throwing things into the drawers willy nilly would become a disaster.
Now, this will really depend on how many kitchen drawers you have and how much “extra” storage space you have, but these tips have helped me in both of the homes we have owned.
1. Drawer Liners
Drawer liners are easy to organize individual items and they help keep the bottom of your drawers from getting all yuk and full of crumbs.
2. Have a Drawer Knife Block
Counters can easily look cluttered and there’s something that just feels good about having only necessary items on your kitchen countertops.
Having a knife block in a drawer is a helpful solution to getting your knives off the counter.
The only caveat here is if you have little kids, it might be safer to actually keep them on the counter.
Your other option is to put them on a draw, but add a safety lock on it that your kids can’t break in to!
3. Drawer Dividers
Perfect for dish towels and cloths, adding drawer dividers can help keep your stuff separated.
Even in a junk drawer, I have found that by adding these separators, you can create organization even in your disorganization!
Plus, it forces you to clean out your junk drawer when you take all the things out to add the separator in there in the first place – win win! ;)
For tea towels in the kitchen, the KonMari method of folding once again works great. These little towels fold very quickly and this method allows more to fit into the drawers, too!
Organizing Bathroom Drawers
Bathroom drawers and cabinets can get out of hand quickly, so it’s important to keep them organized.
These drawers are deep and narrow and have to contain a lot of items that could get messy quickly.
So it’s even more important to have a good drawer organization system in place for the wildness that can happen in here.
My favorite solution to this is mix and match acrylic bins!
How To Organize a Junk Drawer
Where is your junk drawer? Ours is in our kitchen and contains various items such as pens, batteries, mini screwdrivers (the type for toys) and a few office supplies that get used frequently, such as tape and scissors.
Regardless of what your junk drawer holds, you can use drawer organizers (I love these bamboo ones) or acrylic bins like we have in our bathroom drawers for quick organization.
How To Organize Office Drawers
Office supplies usually are either super small (think paperclips, staples, things like that) or really big (paper). Having those organized in the same drawer can be a challenge, but it can be done.
If you have a desk with several drawers, it’s probably best that you put bigger items in a separate drawer from your smaller ones. Use drawer organizers for the small items like paperclips or thumbtacks.
Acrylic bins help create defined sections, like above, which helps keep items corralled in their own little space, and not rolling all around the drawer every time you open or close it.
How To Organize Craft Room Drawers
Whether you craft 24/7 or you only do a few crafts a year, you’re likely to have some craft supplies laying around. Especially if you have little ones.
We have so many different types of crafting items that if I didn’t keep them organized, we would never find anything and my office (where I store everything) would be an absolute disaster, and certainly not a space conducive to work.
Just like all the drawers mentioned before this, the principle is the same: organize like items together, use acrylic organizers or dividers to divy up sections of the drawers. And always remember to put things back in their correct spot.
How To Organize Media Drawers
This assuming you still have media, having an organized media drawer can prevent arguments when it comes to family movie nights.
Amazon sells great options for organizing CDs and video games but I [personally think that there’s a very simple ways for organizing all these items that works really well, and is free.
I still have all my DVDs from when I was a kid that my own kids now love to watch. The simplest and honestly best way to organize them in a drawer is just to stack them with the titles facing up.
It’s kind of like a take on the Kon Marie method. It’s easy to see the titles and they fit wonderfully!
Final Thoughts
Are you ready to get those drawers organized?
By implementing these simple ideas and systems, it will make it so much easier to find things and put things back.
And you know what that means? Everyone life runs smoother and more efficiently!
While this isn’t a fully exhaustive list of every drawer you could possibly have in your house, hopefully it’s enough to help you get started and figure out what works for you.
Then once you figure out what works, you can duplicate it. Like all organizing – the general principle is a place for everything and everything in its place.
It’s a simple mantra to live by but boy, does it work!
