Kitchen Desk Organization

In our house we have places I call “Drop Zones” these are places that people just drop things instead of putting them away. Most likely, because there is not a specific place for them to go. Kitchen desk organization can be a total battle but I’m going to show you how to get it under control.

So let’s look at the before. I know some of you may be wondering how does it get this out of control. Well life get’s busy and sometimes it’s just easier to drop it thinking you will pick it up later. Later never comes and the pile just get’s bigger and bigger. In addition to all the junk I am a cook book addict, all those shelves are filled as well as a rack on the desk and another self in the kitchen.

The first thing I did was call in my good friend Julie to help. She pulled everything out and started with a clean slate.

As we cleaned we threw out stuff we knew needed to go. Everything else went on the kitchen table and the cook books in the floor to go through.

I thought going through the cookbooks would give me hives but I ended getting rid of over 50%. Some I had never used or had used one recipe from. I have passed the pile for a week and did one more pass through but didn’t add any of them back to my shelves. They will be donated to a book sale fundraiser for our school. Three new ones I kept to make gift baskets with.

Next we sorted the stuff going back into the drawers by type. Nothing went back into the drawers that is not used at this desk or kitchen. The biggest rule to organization is things need to be where you use them or they won’t go back. Let’s take a look at the after. First I took my video camera and battery chargers and put them in a photo box to hide them.

We put back the remaining cook books, 2 decorative pitchers that I had cleaned extra utensils out of on my kitchen counter onto the shelves along with 2 photo box’s.

In the top drawer we put office supplies. Using drawer organizer bins we separated markers and sharpies, pens and pencils. Erasers, staples and pencil sharpeners and thumb tacks, all in there own separate containers. Post it notes are on the side.

The next drawer has tape (who knew I had so much tape!), box cutters,  batteries and a few small tools to open things we need to put said batteries in. My husband works out of the home and get’s lots of packages so that is why we have box cutters and tape in our kitchen.

The last drawer has things we often hunt for like extension cords, chair pads so our chairs don’t scrape the wood floors and rug tape to make rugs in the kitchen and foyer non slip. Lastly is our supply of suction cup hooks and command hooks which we use to hang up kids artwork projects and other things.

On the top of the desk is a basket with mail that needs to be gone through. One this is empty a smaller basket will replace it so it does not get so out of hand. Under the desk the drinks and things are all gone into a cabinet and I now have room for a small stool so I can sit and study recipes or do bills.

It’s been one week and I have to say so far it’s still clean. The secret is a place for everything and everything in it’s place. By the end I think we purged 2 large kitchen bags of stuff and now we have made this space efficient instead of a junk pile. What’s your drop zone in your home? Maybe you can apply some of these steps to help clean up yours.