I stumbled across A Bowl Full of Lemons’ 21-Day Getting Organized Challenge, and decided to join in! Lord knows I can always use a bit more organization around here with a toddler, two dogs, three cats, and a husband!
For today’s challenge, we were to organize our junk drawer – I think she’s starting out easy so as not to scare us all away! We’re to take a photo of the before and after and share with everyone, regardless of what crap treasures might be within.
All in all, this isn’t that bad. I do have drawer organizers in here, but there’s a bunch of stuff that doesn’t need to be crammed in here. One of the biggest space wasters were a bunch of batteries that really belonged somewhere else. Before I put them away though, I wanted to be sure they were still good. How to find out?
Use a handy-dandy voltage meter! On the battery you will see in teeny tiny writing the amount of voltage the battery should have when fully charged. Set the dial to the lowest number greater than the volts listed and then touch the prongs to the battery. Black is negative or the flat part, and red is positive, or the button end. If your battery is good, it should have somewhere around the voltage listed. Take any batteries that are no longer good to an appropriate center for recycling batteries, as these should not be put into municipal waste.
Once I dealt with my battery situation, I cleared out the junk, wiped out the drawers and organizers, threw away a bunch of keys that don’t go to anything anymore, tossed pens that don’t work or didn’t have caps, and reorganized everything.
Here’s a before and after, since it really isn’t that obvious what happened:
Love your idea of testing all those loose batteries. They can get out of hand! Thanks for posting! 🙂 Toni
Great job!
Wow, you’ve really maximized your space. Now I’m thinking of testing my batteries. Better to find out now, isn’t it? 🙂
awesome idea how to test your batteries. might have to try it. i had a couple baterries in my drawer that i’m unsure if they are good or bad
Oh wow, I didn’t know you could test batteries! I had a gazillion batteries in my junk drawer, and I just put them all in one container and I was going to hope for the best and hope that they all work. Because WHO in the world would put old, no good batteries back in the drawer with the good batteries? WHO? Oh, that’s right, my husband 😉
Love your blog! I am a new follower, I can’t wait to see all your ideas this year. Keep in touch!