An Organized Cord, Electronic, and Battery Drawer

Before buying our house, we never had enough drawer space to have a junk drawer. We did have a lot of cords and electronic accessories so we had a “cord and battery drawer” in the bottom of a side table. We still have it, and today we went through it all. We found so many cords that we didn’t know what they went to, plus a bunch of cords that we did know where they belonged – with something we no longer owned! This is the gallon bag I am bringing to Best Buy to recycle these cords:

Some things that went in this bag included:

• Old cell phone/camera chargers (The cell phones are no longer in our possession)
• Phone cords (we only use ours for the internet, and we don’t need extra)
• Computer charger that was broken
• Cords that we didn’t know what they belonged with

We also threw away a lot, such as:

• Old memory cards we’ll never be able to use again
• Multiple camera straps
• Dead batteries
• Broken earbuds

We kept chargers and adapters we use.

I labeled anything that wasn’t already with bread ties and Sharpie.

Also, used twist ties to contain the cords. (Or, once, a toilet paper tube for a longer cord.)

Used battery containers from the Container Store (found here) to contain batteries of all sizes. I don’t have any C batteries right now and I used the C-sized container to keep extra size AAs.

e

Some things I love to have that I keep in this drawer also:

• A battery checker

• A reusable battery charger

This is the drawer now. It includes

• chargers
• adapters
• battery checkers
• battery charging device
• batteries
• mini flashlight
• less-used earbuds
• mini tripod for camera
• microphone
• old disposable camera that I’ll use up and find some place to develop
• old iPod Nano that I only use on long car rides (and the adapter to go with it)
• camera when I’m not using it – then I don’t lose it so much

Of course, I have other chargers and electronic accessories that I do not keep in this drawer – such as both our cell phone chargers (used nightly), my laptop charger (used regularly), bigger flashlights, etc.

Do you have a place to store your cords? Have you ever gone through it?

Small plastic drawer organization

I have a three-drawer plastic container under my bathroom sink. I used to keep hair decorations and makeup in it.

Top drawer consisted of clips, bobby pins, and barrettes:

Middle drawer held a brush, ponytail holders, a few headbands, and A LOT of ribbons:

I’ll get to the makeup drawer in a minute.

First task was to declutter. The top drawer may have looked organized because of all the small boxes housing different things, but I didn’t use all of those things and that’s not organized to me. I made three piles (besides what I kept):
-throw away
-offer to adults – specifically, mom
-offer to little girls – nieces

I offered to my mom pretty soon after I made these piles, and what she didn’t want I either threw away (bobby pins/small, deformed clips) or donated.

Any ribbons I didn’t want were thrown away. Then I tied the shorter ribbons together (there were fewer) and rolled up the larger ribbons. (I use shorter ribbons for wrapping around a ponytail, braid, or bun; I use longer ribbons to wrap around my head like a headband.)

I then combined the drawers, since I had less of everything.

I’ll admit, it looks LESS organized now. But trust me – I’ll be more easily able to find things now.

The next drawer housed things from another area under my bathroom sink:

The place in the cabinet where this was was NOT helpful. And I almost never style my hair, so some products were unnecessary and others need to be more readily available so I’ll REMEMBER to use them!

This, minus the hairspray that didn’t fit, became the third drawer down:

I also have my sporty-headbands in this drawer.

Bottom drawer used to be makeup… and other random stuff, apparently.

Threw away every broken or super old makeup, the tattoos, the extra sponges (which I don’t use, I use a brush) and was left with virtually nothing.

But that’s okay, because I rarely wear makeup. I plan on putting the brushes, mascara (not shown), and eyeliners – everything in the pink pencil holder – in a jar or something in my medicine cabinet. The eyeshadows, blushes, sharpeners, etc. will go in a travel makeup bag and live somewhere else so I can have another free drawer.

Since doing this, I’ve used more hair decorations than I have in a while, because I remembered they exist!

What’s under your bathroom sink?

Tip for organizing/decluttering drawers

This post is specifically about your sock and/or underwear drawer(s). 

When it comes to socks and underwear, I used to think it was impossible to have “too many” socks or underwear. But there IS such a thing as too much! I have a policy.

• Anything torn or stained
• Anything that doesn’t fit right
• Anything that you just don’t wear

GET RID OF THEM!

I have donated socks that are in good condition, but I tend to throw away underwear that has ever been worn. I think the only underwear I’ve ever donated were ones specifically purchased to donate.

Ladies’ bras may be donate-able but I’d be careful about the condition. Would you wear a secondhand bra that was stretched out, stained, or with exposed underwire?

There is nothing wrong with going through items like this – it gives you room in your dresser drawers!

My sock drawer is huge… I roll all the socks into pairs and the drawer is then organized into boxes.

Left: Fluffy winter socks that I tend to wear only at home when it gets real cold here in Missouri.

In the middle: ankle socks. I don’t have as many of these because I like to wear sandals in the summer. Also, they are smaller socks.

Right: crew socks for winter as well as dress socks for work toward the front.

I will keep a single, mate-less sock for a little while as their mates do tend to show up. I hold true to my policy of if it is torn or stained, it’s gone. I have a lot of older crew socks, many of which have held up. If I’m left with an odd number after throwing away torn/holey socks, I’m confident that soon another will tear or get a hole, and I’ll pair up the two mateless ones together. (This obviously doesn’t work if the sock is somehow unique.)

It’s always nice to keep your dresser drawers organized so you can find what you need!