I’m wondering if a metal board inside a junk drawer would help would help organize small items too.
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I have one of those bag holders, in fact I was going to mention it but you beat me to it! I use it mostly to hold a bag open when trying to fill it. Acts like a third hand.
My D bought this and loves it for her apartment. Made by the same company of the folding metal bag/bottle dryer mentioned above. Seems it’s not in stock now on Amazon but that’s where she bought it a few months ago. Magnetic so she has it on the side of the refrigerator.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N27Z8M7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Hopefully this link will work….using dollar tree items to organize a laundry room
We have these (two) over the sink in the laundry room. Love 'em because we can put wet dishtowels there and they won’t pollute the laundry bin that feeds from the second floor if we don’t get to washing for a few days. Yet they are easy to roll back to use the sink.
I hate to throw away stuff I know I’ll use (especially if I had to rebuy it at some point) so my solution was to create my own “shopping bin” of extras and stuffed it in a garage cabinet. I stock my inside cabinets sparingly and if I run out I’ll go “shopping” in the garage bin. Saves a lot of “I know I had more but don’t know where it went” buys. I have a tote of “cleaning stuff”, “office supplies” and “kitchen stuff” also.
It looks nice to have bins but beware of having to pull a whole heavy bin down to get to the one thing you needed from it. Better to leave some things in the open.
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I’ve taken to buying fewer extras just because I am not using all of them before best to use before dates. It works for me.
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My system of tote storage works also for little used items. You need the leather cleaner (as an example) but obviously not often but do need it–so it gets transferred to the cleaning tote where you know to search before running out to buy more. It doesn’t need to be a big tote.
The “tower” the video sort of dissed–label the drawers with little things you tend to find that you use a lot that gets spread around the house. Packing tape, scotch tape, double sided tape, flex tape, scrap book tape, glues–washable glue, super glue, glue sticks etc. Make a glue/tape drawer.
Pens/pencils/markers everywhere but then you can’t find one when you need it?–label a drawer and stuff them in it. Kid craft stuff that might come in handy but just bits and pieces? Label a drawer “craft stuff”. You get the idea. When they reach over flowing then discard half and truck on. None of this takes much room and you always know where to look.
Just occurred to me I could label a drawer “spices” and throw my little used stuff in there too!
Here’s my biggest “organizer/time saver” hint. Keep a stash of tools strictly for yourself–a “do-it-herself” kit. Get decent ones you like–that fit your hands, that you like the weight of. Easy to use for you. Do not let any of your tools go to anyone else. Especially kids and sometimes husbands. They are yours. Screwdrivers, hammer, pliers, wrench, picture hanging kits, electric stapler, sander. drill, hacksaw, whatever you like to work with for simple repairs or doing your own thing.
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My mother-in-law had one of those in her dresser drawer. Even after she was blind she kept it there. Helpers were required to borrow, and RETURN, any tool used for a project.
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Especially scissors! I have given each of my family members - when they lived here - their own pair of scissors. With their own colored handles. Do, all the blue handled scissors are MINE. And I hide my sewing/stitching scissors. DD recently amazed her co-teacher with the concept that one needs more than one pair of scissors for sewing.
Edit to add:. This was helped along by the local grocery store that put nice paper cutting scissors on sale for $0.50 each after the holidays! Multiple handle colors and I was set!
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I keep a pair of scissors in every top drawer in the kitchen. That’s five drawers. That way, wherever I’m standing, I can easily open a box or envelope.
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I also keep scissors everywhere. At least 7 pair in the kitchen plus pantry, laundry room, my office, back door, master bath, my closet. And that’s just the downstairs. I buy the 3-packs at Costco and label each one with where it belongs. Otherwise they would never end up back in the right drawer.
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Same here, along with a few other drawers. Reading glass in every one of them, too.
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Somehow we’ve managed all these years with one pair of scissors in the junk drawer LOL….
I do have reading glasses everywhere though!
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I have a screwdriver with flowers on the handle that lives in MY office. Everyone knows it has to go back there and not in the morass of the basement tool area. It’s the only one anyone can find reliably. It lives in a can which is pencils and pens otherwise.
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Interesting about the scissors. They’re so cheap, and it’s so easy to have pairs all over the place. I remember growing up we had one crummy pair of scissors that lived in the downstairs linen closet (which held the “rag bag” – anyone else have that?? – and the vacuum, broom, cleaning supplies, etc.). We’d have to get that one crappy pair of scissors from that one spot in the house.
My parents grew up in the Depression and during the War, so of course that’s how it was.
Regarding reading glasses: I have one pair in my office, one pair in the kitchen, one pair by my bed, and one pair in the bathroom. And I am totally anal about making sure that each pair stays where it should. Otherwise I’d wind up with them all in one place.
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My kitchen isn’t that big. I keep scissors in my island junk drawer…and it’s two steps to get to them from just about anywhere. The next drawer over has my kitchen shears in it.
I keep a small pair of fiskars in my purse (except when I’m traveling by plane).
I have a pair in the upstairs bathrooms also (one in each bathroom).
Glasses? Let’s not talk about how many pairs of those I have! And they are not readers.
Scissors? In the kitchen, I have one in the knife block on one side and another pair in a drawer on the other side. And then I have a pair upstairs in our Xbox/used to have the computer room. Never far away from scissors.
But the best thing I did was buy a small pair for my car console. They have often come in handy for weird random things.
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I have often given my kids scissors, but they don’t seem to be able to reliably find them. My scissors live in my desk drawer. We have kitchen shears for food stuffs only and I have sewing scissors for fabric only which I wrote on and stressed to my kids that they were for fabric only. Then there is a really crappy pair that I put out in the garage for H to do things like cut plastic and wires with so he doesn’t ruin my good scissors.
@VeryHappy we did have a “rag bag” when I was growing up, but it only had rags in it for cleaning and stuff like that. No scissors.
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