You know that junk drawer of yours?

[SwearyBetty]

Your one-day-I’ll-need-that-crap that’s in a drawer/box/cabinet/cupboard. The one that has been overflowing for YEARS and gives you mild to moderate panic feelings when you think of emptying it?

Then one day you become energised and have a decluttering session and you’re ruthless and committed to the cause! Haven’t needed it for 8 years, never going to need it so you happily toss in the bin.

Then 3 weeks later you’re wrapping your secret santa gift and you realise you have the perfect multi coloured tie dye ribbon (that used to be a gift bag handle) and go through the not a junk drawer anymore, looking sadly at the sparseness and tidiness thinking I knew I shouldn’t have thrown that ribbon away...

Mine (ok, there are 2!) contains tea towels, instruction booklets, a couple of screwdrivers, dog poo bags, random tools, dunno what they’re for. I’ve been quite brutal re gift bags, ribbons etc. The other, in the lounge, has an ancient address book, random pens, hand cream.

Inspired by this thread, I’ve been in the kitchen drawer and thrown out several things and cleared the table! Yay for me!

Thank you for inspiring me to do my junk drawer. I found things I thought I had lost!

Unless you need them regularly, avoid buying elastic bands in large bags. They sit in the drawer and the rubber perishes.

Well done @Cherrysoup & @Womanofcustard!

Note to self throw out rubber bands sitting in stationery junk box.

And thanks again. The unwanted items I found will fetch about £40 on ebay!

Drawer? There are drawers? Like Tardis's? I thought they were called houses.

And what is the plural of Tardis?

We used to have an 'everything drawer' but it has spread into other areas...

Do you think you can hire someone to go through all your kids' clothes and takeaway everything which is too small? We have soooo many clothes.

Junk drawer? Just the one? I think I have one per room

Junk drawer, hmmmm. Are you referring to the garage?

I also have the “wtf is this for” box in the garage full of keys and random bits of plastic and metal that may or may not enhance/ be necessary to the functioning of something that I may or may not still own. I’ve carried one bit of metal through 5 house moves across 3 countries. I cannot throw it out in case its use suddenly becomes apparent.

I’m so naive that I used to call mine the glory hole- until a sniggering friend told me it wasn’t a good idea….
Goodness knows what the builder thought when we were discussing the layout for my new kitchen and I said that I had to still have somewhere as my glory hole.

I save rubber bands and I have no idea why. I made a ball of the ones at work, may take them into school to make it bigger!

Every time I go to get clothes out for the morning, I rifle through the wardrobe and chuck a few things in the charity bag on the floor.

My DH probably thinks I spend far too much time in the bathroom, but when I say I'm going for a bath, I mean 'I'm going to fold and put away the washing, then I'm going to give my nails another coat, then scrub the loo which has had descaler down it for 4 hours, then I'm going to wipe down the window sills because there's spots of black stuff on them, then I need to put teatree oil on this wart thing.' Whereas he goes in the shower, gets dried, comes back downstairs.

I’m married to a man with OCD, I don’t have a “drawer”.

Although if I can just share a junk drawer success story. When we bought this house there was a drawer full of keys and Allen keys and remotes/ fobs and none of them ever seemed to be for anything. I was about to chuck it all and said to Dh “ I mean what does this even do?” as I clicked a few buttons on this small cheap remote, there was a whirring and a huge awning that we didn’t even know was there started to come out of the wall over the patio .

Magnificent!

So....... What Was it?! Can't leave uss hanging by a thread! 🙂

That’s mad! Did the vendor not tell you?

He might not have known as he was renting it as a holiday let through an agent and hadn’t been there for years apparently

@TheMoreYouKnow I'm afraid it was very dull - a bit for a pram footmuff, the rest of which was in the garage. So nothing vital to life but it is missing a bit that is meant to be there to keep it all together and it right place and I know that every time it falls off this winter I'll curse my stupid decluttering 😂

Highly recommend Dana K White's Decluttering at the Speed of Life book to help get the drawers under control! Went through mine the other day - I am working my way through the house and the book's been so helpful!

Every time OP

I mean, I don't want to give the impression I have a clear out that often, but, without fail, when you do, whatever you give or throw away will no doubt be needed within the month.