Get Your Drawers In Order!

I will start by clarifying that this is not a laundry post or a post about unmentionables. I'm talking strictly about actual drawers and, in this case, drawers that store office supplies. As I work through creating our command center and updating our little home office nook, I wanted to move the bins of office supplies that are currently stashed in our second bedroom into this space. There are three drawers built in to the desk and, up until now, they were used to store.... well whatever we needed to get off the desk, honestly. So I decided it was time to get these drawers in order!

The first order of business was to go through all of the office supplies and decide what we needed, what could be donated, what should be thrown away, and what could better be stored elsewhere. To do this, I made four piles and went through each item one by one. When my four piles were complete, I created a donation bag and put it in my car right away. Then I tossed the things that were trash, and delivered the items that needed to go elsewhere to their final destination. This left me with all the items I hoped to store in the three drawers. I didn't have a lot of containers laying around the house unused so I made a trip to my favorite thrift store to see what I could find. I found some cute colored square bowls, a white ceramic dish divided into three compartments, some old film negative storage containers, and a larger Sterilite container that I hoped to use to store all of our batteries.

I laid out my storage containers on the counter and began placing all those selected items into a container. I had to do and undo a couple times to get each item in an appropriate container, but after a little bit of work, everything had a place.

I picked up some cheap drawer liner at the dollar store and lined all three drawers before placing supplies inside. This way, things will be less likely to slide around and get messy.

Once the liner was in place, I started to arrange the containers. 

The top drawer holds all the items that we use on a regular basis: scissors, white out, binder clips, paper clips, push pins, and staplers. The middle drawer contains small pads of scratch paper, a small screw driver set, and a box of random tools like a putty knife and tape measure. Finally, the bottom drawer holds the container of batteries, matches, candle lighters, and some travel supplies like suitcase locks and a scale. 

The drawers look so much nicer now and it's so easy to find what we're looking for. Stay tuned for more work on the command center coming in the next few weeks!