a better hardware drawer

Today’s escapade in the quest to conquer the February manini list was cleaning out the hardware drawer.

I’ve always had some kind of hardware drawer. I’m pretty handy, so it’s good to have an easily accessible place to stash hammers, screwdrivers, scrapers, tape measures, and the like. I find myself digging around in there at least once a week.

The drawer itself is not the problem. The problem is that we don’t have a good storage solution for tools and supplies we don’t use very often. They’re scattered around in different boxes and containers and on different shelves in different areas all around the house and garage. Conquering that problem is a much larger project, something like domino #4 in the string of things that have to happen before we can centralize less-used stuff.

But, in the meantime, I needed to clear out the odd stuff so we were just down to the basics again. I took ten minutes this afternoon during an editing break to do just that. I grabbed a plastic storage box and chucked in everything that wasn’t regularly used: leftover weatherstripping, mousetraps, the steel brush, plastic twine, battery-powered LED lights, etc. I also put all those bitty bagged things in that box: picture hangers, Velcro strips, felt bumpers, cable ties, etc. We do use those often, but the bags get in the way and make a mess, so I thought it would be easier to put them in that box and then just put the box in the till.

Now the hardware drawer is cleared of nonessentials and much easier to navigate.