Every household has a junk drawer. Be thankful you don't have more than one.

This drawer is the solution. To everything...

You've lost this one, and if this was a hill you were prepared to die on I would get ready to lose a lot more.

Yes. Minus the scale, absolutely. It’s the tools that too big for the utensil drawer but too small to take up shelf space in a cabinet.

Every family has this drawer

Throw in birthday candles, rubber bands, and a few coins and you got yourself a proper junk drawer.

It's the miscellaneous utensil drawer. We have 2. Up top for common ones like can opener, corkscrew... big one on floor for the lesser used ones like rolling pin, flour sifter, hand mixer....

If you are arguing over this, don't. Not worth it because there's no better answer unless you have a millionaire mansion with a gazillion drawers

Everyone has this drawer, but this one is too organized. It appears to be 100% kitchen tools. You need to add a deck of playing cards, a bunch of soy sauce packets, a few half-used books of matches, a few take-out menus, and some loose keys in order to do this drawer properly.

Yes, every household in the developed world has a drawer like this. It's for things that you hardly need or never need, but might do, one day, probably (not).

Why it bothers me: in a more sane world, this stuff would be shared. Every community would have a junk tool shed - not every household of 4 people, or 2 people, or (increasingly) one person. It's reminiscent of that drill statistic: the average electric drill is used for 7 minutes in its lifetime. This is madness. Our planet is overflowing with junk. As a species we need to be smarter.

Pfft you call THAT an overstuffed drawer?

I bet you can open it without anything catching the backside of the cabinet, nerd.

I wish my drawer was that empty.

Remove the scale, electronics don't belong in the misc food prep and niche baking implements drawer. Once you do that you'll easily recognize it as the food prep and niche baking implements drawer. The scale goes on a shelf, or in a cabinet next to the mixer/food proc/salad spinner.

These misc drawers are the best way to worship anoia, Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers (also luck).

Yes, everyone has this

The 3rd drawer down from the top

I regrettably also have this drawer.

Attempts at cleaning it usually end up with the drawer now being somewhere else, but it clings to life somehow.

I think they're just a fact of life at this point.

Every family afaik has at least one of these drawers. Just accept it and live your life.

The "junk drawer" is supposed to have old receipts, loose batteries, the toy(s) you took from your kid when they threw it at your head, some vaguely kitchen-esque looking tool you got as a wedding gift but don't know what it is....crap like that.

That's just a normal large/specialty utensil drawer.

That's not even a proper junk drawer, that's all kitchen gadgets, but okay... Yes, in my experience, most households have a junk drawer.

Your wife is right mate, this drawer is what makes a house a home.

Yes. I've tried to sort it, but there are too many small things that don't go anywhere else, so they are dumped together.

Trust me, that one is fine

Well this backfired on OP

Not to brag but I have two of these and a proper junk drawer.

Every house have this. And yours is very neetly organised. Congrats. May you "tiroir à bazar" stay this empty of small non identified cluter.

Not only does everyone have one of these, they suffer from quantum entanglement.

Yes absolutely

But not the scale tho

Yep. The "junk drawer". Even in my house with my diagnosed OCD mom had one of these.

Every family has this drawer.

Every single person does not have this drawer.

Every child has this for every drawer.

This is not a junk drawer, there are no coins or condiment packets.

This looks to be a kitchen accessories drawer although I'm unsure why you have a pill cutter in there.

Every house has one.

Ours is a little more organized with dividers, but it doesn't look much better. Everyone I know has a drawer like that. I'd take the scale out and put it on a shelf. Scales are delicate.

PS, we have the exact same can opener, pizza roller, and grater as you guys.

Where is the ball of asparagus rubber bands?

Hate to say it, but just about everyone I know has a junk drawer, myself included. Same as you with the other drawers, organized to the max, but the junk drawer will always be the junk drawer.

As others have said, this isn't even a junk drawer, this is the miscellaneous kitchen tools drawer. My homes have always had one of them plus an actual kunk drawer full of keys, batteries, loose pens and caps, tape, rubber bands, stamps, and lighters. This thing is organized and coherent and i jave no clue what your complaint is.

Junk drawer. Yes, everyone has one.

We have a junk room. LOL.

where's the sauce packets?

Yours is actually much cleaner, but you cannot escape the drawer. We are all the drawer. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

Yes. Most kitchens have a junk drawer. This is often where the household hammer is kept, among other random things.

Compromise in marriage means not organizing everything to death and allowing your partner to maintain some jumbled spaces. A junk drawer is organized, out of sight chaos that still maintains a certain logic.

We’ve also floated the idea that not having a junk drawer in the kitchen may be a marker of psychopathy. I jest, but also not. Just know, junk drawers are common, diverse, and almost as expected as silverware drawers.

Almost every home has a junk drawer or other junk container. Mine has multiple.

All that being said, I don't think I've seen a drawer as confusing as this.

The misc tools drawer? I have one that's overflowing. My parents have multiple drawers and cabinets of this.

That's essentially the "overflow" drawer. The only solution is to have less stuff... Or just live with it like i do lol

Ah yes, the "junk" drawer. I have three! :-)

Definitely got one of those.

Sorry OP, we've got two in our home.

This is not a junk drawer. A junk drawer has flashlights, pocket knife, some tools, tape, bandaids, pens. This drawer doesn't have anything like that.

This is the food prep drawer.

I have three food utensil drawers. Dining, serving, and prep.

If you have a small kitchen, maybe you would combine serve and prep utensils into one drawer.

Can opener, cheese grater, scale, rolling pin, whisks, mixer parts, and cooking knives, all go into drawer. But like the bread knife and cake knife go into serve drawer, along with ladels, and serving spoons, for example.

Yes, I have a drawer like that. And yes, every family has this drawer.

Yes, I have the where-does-this-thing-go drawer, for food prep items that don't fit elsewhere, and also the junk drawer which includes things like

• Lighter
• Weird long plyers
• Twine
• Self-fusing rubber tape
• Random rubber bands
• Twist ties that came with electronics
• A random assortment of sharpies in various states of abuse
• A weird scissor thing with a blade at 90° to a flat piece of steel
• Random Lego pieces
• Batteries that are good but not in packaging
• Hearing aid batteries (noone in our house has hearing aids)
• A single 12"x18" piece of Scotch Brite
• Matches
• A pencil with the tip broken off
• A pair of 1/2" Cast iron pipe 90° fittings
• A key for a car that nobody can ID
• The manual for the microwave
• A bunch of pennies
• Coupons for McRibs that are expired gone thanks for this thread
• Our home insurance policy nope, 3y out of date
• A replacement impeller for the fish tank
• An iPod charger (FireWire)
• An iPhone charger (usb)
• 2 sets of analog headphones
• A dishwasher cleaning tablet

So...there you go.

3d printed some Gridfinity stuff and fixed a couple of these drawers. The rest are under way.

Every family has that drawer

Every family... I have TWO of them

every family has this drawer. We have this drawer. The solution to having this drawer is having this drawer.

Team junk drawer. Where else do you keep your used batteries?

Families only have one drawer like this?? How do they manage?

I had way too many of these drawers 🫠

The only surprise is that your family didn't have this drawer, apparently?

Of course, the junk drawer.

I don't think I've ever been in a home without one.

my family has had 2 of these since the 90s and now i have 2 of my own.

Your wife is correct.

Yes, every family has this drawer, and every family also has a member who despises this drawer and fruitlessly reorganizes, labels and makes it easy for everyone else but it takes one load of dishes and…

What were we talking about again. Oh yeah, that’s normal.

I honestly have multiple drawers like it.

At least one. Usually more.

Empty the drawer into a box. Whenever you use a box item, it goes into a drawer. After a year, donate the box

Wife's right. This is an example of the pareto principle. 80% of your shit fits in 20% of the categories needed to properly organize your shit. 80% of the needed categories account for only 20% of your shit. 20% of your shit (and 80% of the needed categories) are in that drawer.

Of course I have that drawer. Why do you need a solution? What's the problem?

Yep, have one. Its perfectly organised, because those things always go back in that drawer so that's just where they go.

You guys can open THE drawer?!

Yep, we have that drawer. Ours is much larger and much more full. My wife loves baking, which accounts for a lot of it - there's about 5 pie servers in there, for example, along with various spatulas of many sizes. There are also three ice cream scoops so the odds are good I'll have at least one that is clean when I need it. Lemon zester, spoons, all kinds of baking and cooking-related stuff. The rubber things you use to get stubborn jars open. I can't even think of what else is in there, but there's a lot.

This is separate from the drawer that has rarely-used knives (we have a knife block for the commonly used knives), cake decorating materials, and similar stuff.

And both of those are separate from the designated "junk drawer" that has random stuff like box cutters, can coozies, gift cards, coupons, etc.

Attempt at organizing said drawer of ours

Of course, everyone has this drawer. It's called a junk drawer. Where else would you put this crap. What planet are you living on?

When my daughter was 4, she named it the “Don’t know where go drawer” and that’s how we’ve referred to it since.

I also have a man drawer.

My wife has serious ADHD, this is every drawer.

Aaaah, the "As seen on TV"+drawer! Yes we have that one.

Our catch-all drawer has screwdrivers, pliers and enough other tools to rebuild an engine, plus office supplies.

Every single organization system will fail. When we try to put things into categories, there will always be some things that don't fit. That is why every organization scheme needs a miscellaneous category. That seems to be the purpose of this drawer, and that's great.

I have no drawers that are not this drawer.

I do not have that drawer. Mine is at least twice as full.

Sorry to say, your wife is right. Sorry to say, even if she is wrong she is right.

I have heard of people without a junk drawer.

Heard of.

Yes, and as others have mentioned, the scale sits on the counter since it's delicate.

If you don’t have this drawer you simply don’t have drawers.

To an extent, we always had a junk drawer. Over the years it got smaller and more organized. Utinsels have an actual drawer for them all. So no pizza cutter in our junk drawer anymore. Almost everything in your picture has a spot for us.

Here's our junk drawer now.

Just to the left of the stove, and the goddamn potato masher always manages to wiggle its way to the top and block the drawer opening.

It’s also how some fruit is grown so leave the drawer ecosystem alone.

I live alone and have this drawer.

I am ridiculously organized and clean. I do that 5 minutes of swift pickup/wipe a few times each day.

That said, still have this drawer. There is always a collection of items that don't seem to go "together" but they're always used. That's what this drawer is for.

I don't get the stock picture though. It's an obvious arrangement of tools that haven't even been used.

Every family has this drawer

I have this drawer.

It's not a junk drawer.

It's an irregular kitchen items drawer.

It's just the cost of being someone who actually uses their kitchen. We have the garlic press, scissors, pizza cutter, bench scrapers, microplaners, thermometers, etc... in there. All useful things that fit poorly with other things, so they get a drawer all to themselves.

The junk drawer with batteries and twist ties is another drawer.

We have 2 drawers like that. What's the problem with it if you don't have a better place to put that shit?

Jesus fuck, it's fine.

We've got 2

My life is this drawer.

Looks like a junk drawer or a multi purpose drawer in any kitchen. There is often one near the sink. In some larger cabinet sets, the small drawer like that is on the end. But it varies where everyone has it. Maybe all the decent sized kitchens do.

Yeah, everyone has such a drawer. But what is that green thing at the top? Something for baking?

Ahh. The good ole junk drawer.

I've had one in every home I've lived, even when I was the minor.

Wife says the same.

We have 3 such drawers, one in the kitchen, one in a common area and one in the laundry room.

Why is it on the top. It should be second or third.

Exactly like in the picture

Yep, I have a 'random shit' drawer too

its the miscellaneous drawer, its normal, we have a whole misc cabinet.

I can understand just about everything in this drawer because I have a drawer that looks like that ...

What I don't understand is that lettuce knuckle duster thing .... were you planning on going to war with the vegetables?

Every house has that drawer.

I don't get why it bothers you, well, maybe it's not a serious disagreement idk.

Entropy wins.... always. You must free yourself and accept this. You cannot defeat entropy.

Every house has one. My mother with legit OCD had one... though she claimed it was a 'Miscellaneous' drawer and not a junk drawer. (To be fair, it was a well organized junk drawer at any rate.)

But yeah, your wife is right.

Yep, we all do. Although you might be going a little far in putting the food scale in there.

I have multiple junk drawers. Like all of them.

This isn't a true junk drawer in my mind because it looks to be all cooking implements. I have a junk drawer, but it contains like rubber bands, rando pencils, gum, etc.

Shit not only does ever house have this drawer, every restaurant I've ever worked in has a utensil pan like this.

That one drawer won't look messy, if every drawer looks like this. *taps forehead *

For every item in that drawer, ask yourself: "When was the last time I used this?"

If it's more than a year ago, it's not in the right place.

If it's less than a year ago, it's also not in the right place.

Everyone I've ever known personally has a "junk drawer." It's where various random doodads and thingamajigs go when they don't neatly fit any other category. And batteries.

Every home has that drawer. What is the problem that needs a solution?

Not in my house: We have like, 4 or 5 of that drawer. Between me and my wife we have a shitload of kitchen gadgets and accessories.

You could build our repurpose something like a silverware organiser, but fitted to the items in there.

But the true travesty: the scale should be easily accessible and in constant use tsk tsk

(We don't have such a drawer btw)

We moved to a new house, and I was storing things like a hammer, nails, screws etc. In a kitchen drawer for hanging the 5 millions things to go on the wall. My wife asks me if the drawer will eventually be cleared out.

It's been 2 years.

You're lucky you only have one, and it's only a single layer deep

as others have said, "yes" most people have the misfit drawer. We always called it the "horrible drawer_ because ladles and can openers and things would often catch and make it hard to open. I say embrace it, everyone deserves love even if not everyone fits in perfectly

We have a miscellaneous drawer of utensils and kitchen tools. Also another drawer of non-kitchen stuff that's just "the kitchen drawer" - screwdrivers, pliers, paper clips, rubber bands, magnets, ruler, magnifying glass.., not exactly "organized" but randomly deposited in compartments of an old generic drawer organizer so at least it's not just a pile. We just call it "the drawer".

Close the drawer?

And yes there's always a bucket drawer for things that can't be categorized

Not in the kitchen but I have a (very large) one for electronics and batteries and it's the worst. Tools and screws. Office supplies.

This kitchen one you could neat up a bit if it really annoys you. Put the scales in a cupboard upright against the side. Maybe get a nicer scale, that one looks naff. Trash the salad shears. What a terrible idea. Put the pizza / dough metal thingie on a wall mounted magnet for knives and stuff. Maybe put some of the other metal stuff there idk. Everything else is pretty small so you can put in dividers for that. The grater and ladle go in the same compartment.

Unless of course you think your wife should tidy up this drawer in which case you can just absolutely fuck off. Into the ocean. Die and get eaten by scavengers.

Edit: oh, that's a meat tenderiser, not a ladle. Everything else stands.

Mine is more organised (without dividers, similar stuff simply each has its own space) and still roughly looks like yours.

At my parents we had a similar drawer with miscellaneous stuff but it was organised so it looked somewhat tidy. Currently I don't have a drawer like this, cuz I have a tiny kitchen with only one drawer which is reserved for cutlery.

Yes, every family I've ever known has had a drawer with bulky oversized kitchen utensils and gadgets. The harder you try to organize these things, the more you will realize that you'd just end up with an entire drawer taken up by a single pizza cutter, garlic press, or zester. Theoretically, if you had enough storage space in your kitchen you could do that, but these things are used so infrequently that they either get shoved into one drawer which fully takes up that one space with disorganized chaos, or placed in a receptacle of some sort to sit on the countertop for when you need it, which is ugly and takes up then takes up the counter space instead.

Solution: build a new cabinet with a bunch of drawers and put one item in each drawer

Dear OP, the only odd thing about your drawer is that your garlic press in in there (unless this is your backup garlic press of course). In our household, we have it in the main cutlery drawer.

BTW, we have several such drawers spread out over our home: one in the kitchen, one in the living room, one in the home office and several in the garage.

Sorry man but I have to side with your wife here. We have even one such junk drawer per room.

• In the kitchen with scissors, jar opener, potato peeler, nut cracker, sticks, tooth picks...
• In the living room with matches, candles, coasters, birthday decoration, fertilizer for house plants, ...
• In the bedroom we even have one per person with protective gear for sports, single socks that have their partner missing, scarves, baseball cap, luggage straps, ...

Could go on with bathroom, laundry room etc. Junk drawers for the win!

Not only do we have the "one", we each have one in our own space as well.

Wife is always right

We do not have that drawer. My kitchen is tiny and only has 2 drawers. As a result, our entire apartment is a mess

Looks perfectly fine. Ours is the second drawer though. Top one is for cuttlery

Yes, embrace the drawer

It's your house's shrine to Anoia. Rattle it every once in a while.

Bachelor here, and I do indeed have a random shit drawer. As did my family when I was growing up.

Yes, I'm pretty sure everyone has a drawer like that. One thing I'm missing (unless I'm just not looking hard enough) is scissors.

We have 3 of them: misc kitchen utensils and tools, misc containers, and misc stuff that does not even belong in the kitchen, but ends up there because that's the only drawers in the house that don't have clothes in them.

If you want to organize it some, you can build or buy dividers and split it up.

This is true. It is the "occasional use kitchen drawer"

I also have this drawer

I'd filter out metal things that has handles like this pizza cutter and meat hammer and try to give them some sort of a stand or a magnet surface to stick them on.

We have this drawer, maybe 2. My parents recently thinned and organized theirs. You can get cut-to-fit drawer Inserts if it bothers you.

I think there are some sharp as well as blunt instruments that can be used to help resolving that disagreement.

I have this drawer, and also the junk drawer. This is the correct solution to 'uncommonly used tools of an awkward shape'

I'm sorry you had to find out this way.

We have several of those drawers.

My family has a junk home, not just a drawer :)

Every household, family or sole occupant, has this drawer. Sometimes there are more than one of these.

Have you ever visited other people's kitchens? Everyone has that drawer.

Pretty much every house i cooked at i found an equivalent of this drawer, even when they did other things differently. Maybe with the exception of my girlfriend, she's freakishly organized, but she has one massive drawer that includes silverware where somehow all the weird crap fits and it's organized,

Edit: I lied, I looked at her drawer again today, she has a subsection for random cluttered shit

Correct, we have this drawer. And what sucks is that it has been broken for about 20 years.

We have two of them.

What is the green thing with the white blades?

We don't have one, we have multiple

The only reason I don't have such a drawer, is an overall lack of drawers in my house, don't really have one to spare to be a junk drawer.

Which is a damn shame because I could really use a drawer to throw some miscellaneous odds and hands that don't have any other designated place to live.

It's the stuff drawer. Why are you like this?

We have four of these drawers. What helps is organization trays of different sizes and a junk cupboard.

Long skinny things fit here, curved things go here, bulky things get piled up in the cupboard.

Sorry OP - we all hate it too, but everyone has this. Your drawer doesn’t even look that bad. (You were able to OPEN it!)

I have that drawer, a bit more full tho.

It's the one where everything is oddly shaped and can't stack easily.

That's easy:

We have two OP. That drawer is as american as low taxes for the rich.

You have the OCD strain of autism and so do your parents.

There isn’t a house in existence that doesn’t have one of these. All houses that exist have one of these by celestial mandate.

I do not have this drawer.

I have two of this drawer.

Bits and bobs drawer. Yep

Yeah, we have this drawer. There are always going to be some tools you use in the kitchen enough to justify the purchase but not enough to be in any of the daily driver drawers. Honestly, this is not bad, we have a drawer that is the awkward necessary crap drawer for the awkward necessary crap drawer.

A messy drawer? There should be at least two: one for the kitchen and one for general.

The problem is not the organization or lack thereof, the problem is that someone in your household buys too many niche specialized single-purpose kitchen tools. Wtf is that thing with the green handle?

I try to donate any kitchen tool that I haven't used in a year or two.

This drawer is government issued when a house is built. Every family had this drawer. It is load bearing. Removing the contents of this drawer will cause irreparable damage to the house.

I wish I could open mine.

How did you get in my house!?

(yes, we have this exact drawer, though I moved the scale to another drawer)

We have several junk drawers. Maybe they all are.

I sort of have 3 variations of this drawer. One is fully named “the junk drawer” and contains things like rubber bands, batteries, scissors, garden snips, things that are sort of odd one out in other spots, but I feel are still relevant to my kitchen. Then I have one that is this but specifically things used on the stove and for mixing. So that puts spatulas, whisks, and such into their own mess. Finally is the “kitchen gadgets” drawer which looks very similar to yours. No organizer tray because everything is odd shapes, but also honestly sees little enough use I don’t really mind digging through it.

I do have it.

Every family has at least one packing drawer of course!

My wife got snap apart customizable drawer organizers and it's a big difference. She showed me the way.

We had one when I grew up. Now that I'm living elsewhere with my own family we don't; we have two.

In Yorkshire they call this a rammel drawer

Wow. Yours looks really clean. We have two of these drawers and they're maxed out double as full.

I have one of the drawers and I'd consider myself organized. I try to keep it organized with one of these rather large Ikea Stodja drawer organizers. I used to use silverware organizers but stumbled upon this thing, 14"x20". They come in other shapes and sizes too but is a lot handier than using a regular silverware organizer because the compartments are pretty large.

Pens and notepads/post-it notes in one, batteries and an Eneloop wall charger in another, hair ties/lip gloss/rubber bands in another, big compartment holds a roll of packing tape and various other tapes, and another slot has a couple pairs of scissors.

I'd recommend getting a larger organizer just so you can compartmentalize larger things together, something a silverware organizer usually can't accomplish

I have several. It takes a few months before the order becomes chaos. I do know where to find my stuff though.

I have no drawers but at least one box per room for this purpose

No drawer. Probably due to the kitchen layout, we don't have smaller drawers, so the tools and such go into their own container.

It's more of a "Junk Drawer" in my family. Just for things that have no relevant places or are easily categorized, but are important enough not to keep somewhere more out of the way. Always contains at least one item that makes it near impossible to open the drawer on first pull and requires manipulation to open. For my family, it's usually a hammer.

It's called a junk drawer and as far as I am aware it's an inevitability. However, I will say it's odd that you have utensils in there. Most junk drawers I've encountered are filled with random crap that rarely if ever gets used.

I lack the space for a drawer like this, instead this exists as a plastic tub in the kitchen cabinet under the sink.

Yep.

im afraid that everyone has the forbidden drawer. the drawer that should never be opened except as a last ditch effort to find that one appliance that seems to elude you in every other drawer. you can try to destroy the drawer, but it will always come back in some form.

I have whole cabinets like this

In reality you live in a junk drawer cozy. Just support the junk drawer and everything will probably be OK.

Your junk drawer game is weak. We have 3 of them in the kitchen and the least bad of them is worse than that.

We all have one . Mines right next to the oven so I have quick access to various things I use

Every kitchen has this, but I'd work on your layout. You could put about 50% more gadgets in there.

Also, store the scale vertically somewhere for maximum efficiency

Only if you have extra drawer space to waste. Most beneficial would be to give a dedicated space to the scale

Yep we’ve got a large utensil drawer

To say what others have said in a different way. Yes, in almost any categorisation system, you're gonna need to deal with some misc haha.

Where else could these things possibly go? (minus the scales, which in my opinion belong on some flat surface in a cupboard of countertop somewhere, since I use my scales all the time)

We have one of these drawers at home, also. I think your wife is right on this one friend.

We have this drawer. Full of kitchen utensils that don't fit nicely into other drawers.

My parents did not have this drawer. Or at least, not nearly to this extent. Idk how they did it with a smaller kitchen than we have.

I have to sat that the additional of a scale to that drawer is a wild choice

Every family I know has this drawer, sorry mate

I want to know how OP would like this drawer to look instead. Random kitchen utensils always seem to get shoved in a drawer like this

I have one and my parents have one

We have a space for that in our cutlery drawer, as well as a basket of miscellanea in a shelf where it doesn't matter if they get dusty.

My work does one of those round robin steal it gift exchanges. One of my coworkers would just dump her junk drawer into a bag. It had the best stuff!

Pretty hard to avoid the drawer. Maybe find a new home for that scale (maybe sideways in a deep drawer?), throw a few rarely used tools into a ziploc bag, and introduce a caddy or two to corral the small stuff.

Even the community kitchen I use has one of these...

Consider a spring loaded drawer divider. Keeping everything from sloshing around can make a surprising amount of space.

My drawer in the image used to be a nightmare. Everything used to move around and it would jam when opening sometimes. Adding dividers got it organized enough to leave a third of it free, which is now the rightmost section that's filled with tea.

It's been over a year and I still feel a small sense of joy when I open it sometimes. There's still messes of junk in the back left and right, but they stay put.

every family has a drawer like that, mine has two

Nobody has this drawer. They're all lying to you, it's some big in-joke like that reddit thread where that person was asking how to switch from Spanish to English and everybody replied in Spanish. You should stand your ground and tell your wi--I can't even joke about the level of gaslighting that would entail. Everybody has this drawer.

I'll be honest though, the scales are a poor fit and probably make it way more cramped. You can stand those up sideways at the edge of a cupboard or in whatever place that you keep cutting boards, because they're a similar shape.

Depending on how often each thing is used, you could optimise by figuring out a hanging solution for some of them. That's quite a common thing, hanging under cupboards or on the backsplash part of the wall. Your wife might appreciate something like that as long as it's agreed on. You'll never totally get rid of this though.

I have this drawer.

I also don't have that drawer, but I have a box next to the toolbox labeled "useful crap that aren't tools"

Don't known, but that big green thing with the clamping white blades...do not put your dick in that.

At first I was thinking I don't have this drawer, but I suppose I have a version of it. Anything that doesn't get used weekly goes into a misc. box that I store in the pantry to keep clutter out of drawers, e.g. icing spatula, fat separator, some baking items, etc.

My knives are upright on my counter and my scale is in my cabinet though, so that also frees up space. A few trays in your drawer might help?

I have accessory drawers, but they have organizers in them and I never put sharp things just randomly strewn i n a drawer. I have some baskets with random stuff in them for like extra cotton balls, the other of a 2 pack of soap, and stuff like that which could be considered "junk drawers", but none of it is junk really. And I do have in my basement workbench a drawer that has random leftover parts from projects like screen spline, insulation spools, etc. That could definitely be called a junk drawer, but non of that is dangerous to reach in and grab, nor will any of the items damage each other when fumbling through them.

She's right. Always.

I’d say that every house has a junk drawer, but I wouldn’t call this a junk drawer. It mostly looks like random kitchen tools. I guess you’re both right, in a way.

Maybe what you need is a wall-mounted rack to hold some of your other stuff without taking up valuable counter space. For example, I’ve heard people swear by magnetic knife holders. You can probably find magnetic tool holders at a hardware store for less than you’d find knife holders at a store that specializes in kitchen stuff.

Or maybe just get some hooks. Perhaps some little shelves. Whatever. The point is, make the stuff you use most often more accessible, and use the freed-up space in other drawers to clean out this drawer. Then turn it into a proper junk drawer, with shit like loose rubber bands, half~dried superglue, an awkwardly shaped pen from a real estate salesperson, and a tape measure that’s branded with the logo of an NFL team for some reason.

We have that drawer, plus a bowl in a cabinet full of stuff like that.

that drawer is a small scale representation of my home.

Yep, this is a junk drawer at its nascent stage.

My mother got into the pampered chef selling bulldonkey when I was young, and despite the dozens of items we got from them, only four really stood out, and she still has three of them. The ice cream scoop (how hard is it to make a shaped chunk of metal, after all), the kitchen shears (which were actually good quality), the slap-chop before there was a slap-chop brand (the one that is now missing/broken), and the kitchen organizer thing for the countertop: pic related. It was great for the longer shaped things, like some of what you have in the drawer. If the drawer bothers you that much, consider something that goes on the countertop or on the wall (or even a hanging pot organizer, which I love above a kitchen island.

I am proud to say that I don't have this drawer. I grew up in a house with this drawer and always hated it. Nothing new is added to the kitchen without considering the actual need and anything that goes unused for any length of time is getting reevaluated.

Could you un max out other areas? Eliminate duplicates elsewhere so things in this drawer could be moved to the newly made space?

I don't have this drawer. I have several drawers organised by use. Baking, cooking, eating, etc. All are barely organised.

Every family without a gigantic kitchen has that drawer.

I have the contents of that drawer in about 4 drawers and 2 cabinets. I have so many cabinets, I don't even have things in some of them and I have instant pots, a tortilla maker and sourdough proofing tools

However, I do have an oversized drawer that has a l lot of stuff in there like the funnels and tenderizer, but it has no sharps in it, and no scale.

Yes everyone has this drawer

At my parents' place, EVERY drawer is like that!

Think about it like Socrates, man. Of course there’s gonna be a category for things that don’t fit in any other categories.

We have essentially the same drawer but with no scale and more ladies, measuring spoons, etc.

I'd probably put that scale somewhere else since it's a precision device, and it can't be too healthy for it to live like that.

Yes/no. We dont have a designated junk drawer, but theres one specific drawer we happen to throw random things into. I clean it out maybe twice a year during one of my adhd fueled hyper cleaning sessions.

Brother, it is the junk drawer that keeps you sane. For trying to organize everything is impossible.

I see enough squish things tools to designate it the squishing drawer.

We don't have one.

If something isn't important enough to have a specific place, it isn't important enough to own.

Every family has a junk drawer. Just accept it and move on in your life.

This is very common. If you really must "solve" it, the solution world be a shadow box layout. You empty it, lay stuff down where you want it, then take a picture or trace the shapes onto paper. Then model and 3d print an insert to give everything a dedicated cutout or cut it from foam or mill it from wood. This is what folks do in workshops. I've never seen it for a kitchen large utensil drawer, but that's what to do if you must.

Proud junk drawer owner checking in.

I have three small awkward necessary crap drawers, and my apple slicer doesn't fit into them. But my kitchen is so small, I call in the galley (facetiously, it's not actually on a boat).

There are probably houses out there somewhere that do not have one of these, but I have never encountered one. They appear with the same frequency as 10 million dollar lottery tickets.

I wouldn't put the scale in there but yes, miscellaneous drawer.

If you already have a maxed out sharps drawer, then you probably don't actually need any of the knives in this drawer. Like how often do you actually use the pizza cutter? I just cut pizza with a chef knife. Or the egg cutter? How often is that used? Sometimes the answer is to go through all your drawers and see what can be tossed to make space for the things you actually do use.

Technically, mine isn't a drawer, it's a shoebox tucked under the coffee table, but yes.

I have a knife drawer with 2/3 of these objects in it and a measuring tool drawer witj 1/3 of these items. My junk drawer contains literally nothing in this drawer.

You can at least make some compartments so it's not all jumbled together

But yes, I do have a couple of those drawers

I'd just point out that most of that drawer could be replaced with a good knife. I mean is cutting garlic really so onerous you need a fancy doodad? Even the zesters functionality could be done with a knife. I hate to be judgey bastard, but that drawer smacks of consumerism and excess. With the exception of the mixer prongs and the scale I'm not seeing anything needed in a residential kitchen.

Where else would you sort the strange kitchen tools?

They don't belong anywhere in particular, so they are clumped together.

Yeah, I've got that drawer

You lost this one.. They've even written songs about it....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LuJHgb5RB-4

Looks good

I don't have this drawer. The ambiguous items just get a place assigned to them with their less ambiguous brethren. And some of these more three dimensional things I keep in a cabinet, like the funnels. I usually keep my scale out on the counter at all times because it's part of my coffee setup in addition to just baking/cooking

Bench / pastry scraper next to the end grain cutting board on counter (that's how I clean it most often). Microplane and pizza cutter (Italian chef knife) get hung. Funnel covers a teacup protecting it's rare use from excess dust / atomized oils in the kitchen. Garlic press is a waste of money when you have knife skills. -Citrus juicer likewise (cut 1/3 slabs around the core using the geometry to make squeezing efficient).

My mom has one of these, but we (my and my brother) don't live with her anymore. We (me and my gf) don't have one.

You might like a doom box: "didn't organise only moved". Put it in sight but make sure it's small enough that you can put it away when guests are over.

Yes. It's so common that it's been a well known joke in the UK for the last 16 years: The "Man" Drawer.

Sepparate utensils into three groups. Prep and baking tools should be near the largest counter space. Cooking tools should be near the stove. Single use tools should be near the curb.

Most of my drawers are junk drawers. IDK how I find anything

I’m lucky that my drawer like this is actually inside a cutting board cupboard. The inconvenience helps give it purpose: awkward unnecessary crap we rarely use

just take the pizza cutter out

I have 2 of these drawers. 1 in the kitchen and 1 in the garage.

Your house is this drawer. Think about it.

This is all of the drawers in our kitchen.

A drawer full of emergency makeshift weapons? Yes. Also a junk drawer? Yes, more than one.

We do

We have this drawer.

I have a large silverware drawer with a silverware tray. The area around the silverware tray is that drawer though

A junk drawer? ... yes, most houses have one.

We have like 3 junk drawers. The get filled with so much shit that we don't know what to do with that we just find another drawer

It can be sorted quite nicely if you get an organiser division thingy. Even if you're only going to keep one thing in each section, it's nice to have each thing in its own place. The difficulty with that is remembering where it's supposed to be, and that it takes more space.

A little basket is suitable for keeping most of those things if you simply accept that them being in the same basket is actually the correct placement for them.

I’ve got four of those.

Edit: wait, that’s a useful disorganized kitchen drawer. I’ve got two. I should do something about my four junk drawers, and today’s the day, goddammit!

Ah yes. The “nonsense drawer” as my youngest labeled it. It has stuck. In my parents family it was called the junk drawer.

I'm too anal about cleanliness and organization, my house typically doesn't have a drawer like this. My favorite mantra in the home, which my chronically disorganized wife is tired of hearing me repeat, is "a place for everything and everything in its place."

However. I inherited my childhood home when my dad passed away this year (my wife and I had already been living here for a few years, in a separate apartment in the house) and my dad had a junk drawer like this. As a matter of fact, my dad was extremely messy and almost every drawer in his house looks like this. It's probably the reason I'm so anal about organization in my life; having to grow up in a constantly messy home.

Growing up in this house, though, my family always had 2 drawers side-by-side in the kitchen which were always filled with random junk. They're still here. I haven't gotten to them yet. So yes, my current house has a couple junk drawers. But if I have my way, they will be organized and cleared out. If there's going to be any messy containers filled with miscellaneous junk in the house, it'll be boxes stored in the garage or basement - not a random drawer.

I by myself only have a single drawer(don't need/have more) but for my parents this is devinetively true. They have one for metal pieces, one for plastic pieces and one for cutlery. The fourth drawer is for all the stuff that isn't really needed that often or simply to big to be put into one of the other drawers.

We don't have one like that. Though most of our kitchen is well organized in drawers.

Yes, all homes have this drawer. Only way to get rid of it is to move. Just leave it all behind.

Yeah it's a thing. I've made wood box type things to separate the drawer out and try to keep it slightly organised.

I have an entire spare dresser that has nothing but these drawers

In my house it’s a whole room instead of just a drawer.

Yes we all have it.

Planer, pizza cutter, egg cutter, and scraper go in the knife drawer. Funnel goes with measuring cups, scale goes on the counter or take the stuff out from under it so it sits flat. Garlic press and that chacram looking thing go in the trash.

In our house this is similar to the spoons drawer, the drawer that holds all the stirring utensils for cooking.

First thing I'd do is recycle that stupid plastic whatsit and the egg slicer that got used once.

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