Closed drawers are wonderful, enhancing the look of your home with the clean impression of being neat and well-organized. Open drawers can be just the opposite–different things in different places, messy, disordered–not only adding to the time it takes to find anything, but also loudly suggesting less-than-wonderful housekeeping. There’s a better way to show off your home than by always keeping the drawers closed. Believe it or not, you can organize your drawers in creative ways to make it a fun and engaging task.
A Place for Everything
Put away everything possible in drawers to add to the streamlined look of your home’s surfaces. The overall impression will be neat, tidy, and very appealing. You may need to toss some seldom-used stuff, or you may need to add drawers if you don’t already have enough. Adding usually comes with the bonus of built-in subdivisions. These additions don’t have to cost a lot, and you can find ones that are patterned and colorful. You can even get them on wheels to provide more flexibility.
And Everything in Its Place
Remember that once you put something in a drawer, you have to be able to find it again later, and putting it in a logical place makes that a lot easier. Base that logic on the idea of organization, and you’ve got it!
The key to creating and maintaining organized drawers is to use categories. Most people already use organizers of some kind in the kitchen for their knives, forks, and spoons. Just extend this thinking to everything in every drawer. Put screwdrivers with other screwdrivers, paper pads with other paper pads, and keys with other keys. Try to eliminate the “miscellaneous” category!
Here’s where the creative part comes in: organizers don’t have to be dull and colorless. You can use items meant for things other than drawers, such as top-of-the-desk organizers in bright colors, packing cubes (they come in many sizes), and all kinds of plastic bags. You can even make drawer separators yourself; use light wood or plastic you can cut easily, and then paint them any color you fancy.
Need some reminders? Paint the inside of the drawer that holds your checkbook, credit cards, blank checks, deposit slips and other money things green. Paint it white if it’s holding anything to do with electronics such as power cords, USB memory sticks, and blank CDs (because those things are usually dark colors, and they’ll show up better against the white background). Choose brown, red, or yellow to match your hair color for your combs, brushes, and hair products.
The key is to use your imagination to make this a doable and fun task. You’ll be well-rewarded the next time you’re looking for your pencil sharpener!