C.O.P. – Organizing The Dreaded Battery & Cord Drawer
It’s been a very long time since I’ve posted a C.O.P. (cleaning, organizing, purging) project! But a few days ago, I reached my limit with our crazy battery and cord drawer. So I ordered a couple of battery organizers, and as soon as they were delivered yesterday, I got to work.
Let me back up a bit. The battery and cord drawer that I’m talking about is in our hallway, and resides in this cabinet that I built several years ago.
When we bought the house, there was a closet in this corner that looked like a DIY closet built by a previous owner. It was just a standard closet with a bar for hanging clothes behind the bifold doors, and a shelf behind the upper doors.
I didn’t want to lose the storage, but that closet wasn’t quite the look I was going for. So I tore it out and built the cabinet. You can find that cabinet building project here.
The bottom section of the cabinet isn’t for storage. That section is for our cat’s litter box. You can see her entrance on the side of the cabinet.
The rest of it is storage, and while the whole thing is full of stuff, none of it is organized. I’ve said this many times, but I’m not a naturally organized kind of person. That just not how my brain works. My natural state is chaos. 😀 But if I make a concerted effort to put organizational tools into place, get rid of things I don’t need, and organize the things I want to keep using those tools, I’m generally pretty good at keeping up with the organization.
But until I set aside time, make that concerted effort, and put those organizational tools into place, my go-to method of storage is the open and shove method. And that’s how I end up with drawers looking like this…
Matt never goes digging through this drawer. I don’t even think he knows where we keep the batteries. 😀 If he needs batteries, he asks me, and I get them for him.
So last week when he asked me to get new batteries for the TV remote, and I had to go dig through this mess, I decided I finally had enough. After changing the remote batteries for Matt, I got online immediately and ordered a two-pack of these Bee Neat battery organizers on Amazon (affiliate link).
Here’s what the battery organizer looks like out of the package. It’s made to be used in a drawer or hung on a wall.
Obviously, before I could even get to the fun organizing part, I had to start with the purging. I got rid of all of the battery packaging and the excess cords. Where in the world do all of the cords come from?! So many of these were identical, and yet, I have no idea what they go to. I’m tired of hanging onto cords when I clearly don’t use them and I have no idea what they even go to, so those went into the purge pile.
After putting all of the batteries into the battery organizers and getting those in the drawer, I arranged everything else that was left
I decided to store a couple of those things in other areas, and kept arranging and tweaking until I had everything I wanted in this drawer. And then I measured the space that was left after putting the battery organizers into place, and cut seven pieces of 1/4-inch poplar make a little DIY organizer for that space.
You can get these poplar boards at Home Depot or Lowe’s, and I’ve even seen them at Hobby Lobby and Michael’s. They come in different lengths and widths. These were 2.5 inches wide and 48 inches long. I simply cut them to the sizes I needed with my miter saw, and put them together with my hot glue gun. Of course, you can buy all kinds of plastic or wood drawer organizers, but I much prefer to make my own so that they’re customized to the exact size I need for my drawer. That way there’s no drawer space at being wasted. And they’re so quick and easy to make!
Before I put the little DIY drawer organizer back into place, I decided to paint the bottom of the drawer to add a little bit of fun color. This is the same Behr Glamorous that I used in the hallway bathroom vanity. And then, for some reason that made sense to me yesterday but I can’t remember today, I decided to put my little DIY organizer on the other side of the drawer.
And now I have a completely organized battery and cord drawer with only the things I actually use. For some reason, we have an excess of C batteries, so some of those had to stay in the boxes. All the other batteries fit into the battery organizers. And then there’s the outlet expander and an extra nightlight. In my DIY drawer organizer, I have the chargers for Matt’s Hoyer lift batteries, USB outlet adapters, iPhone charging cords, and corded earbuds with my iPhone adapter.
When I do these quick and easy organization projects, I always wonder why it took me so long to do them. I’ve been living with the jumbled mess in this drawer for years. Literally years. And it took me all of about 90 minutes to organize, and that includes the time it took me to make the DIY organizer and give the bottom of the drawer two coats of paint and one coat of General Finishes High Performance Topcoat. (I used a hair dryer to speed up the drying process with each coat.)
It’s amazing how just a little bit of time and effort can bring such peace of mind. I don’t now why I put off these projects and live with the chaos for so long. But at least this one drawer (the part of this entire cabinet that I access the most often) is organized and usable now. Here’s a quick before and after…
There’s such a tremendous amount of satisfaction that comes from looking at an organized drawer or cabinet. 😀
If you want to see my other C.O.P. projects, you can find those here. Here are a few of my favorites…
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
AMAZING! Thank You for sharing everything you do in your home!!
That is awesome! Congratulations. I am a natural organizer… Isn’t it funny how we are all different? But I have zero creativity. I mean zero!
And just why did you think you were different from the rest of us disorganized monkeys? I like making your own organizer. When I get my new cabinets installed in the new house, I will be hitting the store for those 1/4″ pieces of wood. The I will be hitting the thrift store to drop off all the mismatched trays and containers I’ve accumulated over 50+ years! I guess I missed those thin boards during my many forays into home improvement stores!
I learn something from almost every one of your posts. I didn’t know those poplar boards existed! A simple solution to a problem every household has. Thank you!
Ignorance here. Can you use that receptacle extender in the drawer for charging?
No, it’s not connected to power. It plugs into a standard outlet. It’s an extra one that I don’t need to use right now, so I just put it in the drawer for storage.
The end result is so satisfying! I’m unable to throw cords (or keys) away if I don’t know what they’re for: my mom found a bag of cords and she had no idea what they were, so she threw them away. Months later, when winter came, she pulled out her electric blankets and then remembered what that bag of cords was for…
I’ve said it before and I will say it again. You are amazing, just amazing. When can you come to my house to give me an estimate to clean up my sewing room?
We did the same getting a battery organizer that’s bigger, like a toolbox from Amazon. Then when we get batteries at Costco they fit into all the slots. And for those of us without wood skills, I’ve used heavy chip board or foam core from my craft stash to make dividers for my watercolor tubes.
Can you share info about your hot glue gun. I want to learn to make my own customized organizers. To much wasted space in my drawers!
Your little touches like painting the inside of the drawers pink just makes me smile. Honestly those tweaks are butterflies and hummingbirds to brighten ordinary life.
Amazing!! Kristi, what is your secret for getting the board to say intact with glue? I’ve tried wood glue and other glues for my DIY popular board organizers and they always fall apart, :(.
Sometimes, it’s those little things that make life so much easier! Inspiring as always!
What a greAt job you did and I can use that idea as well. Thanks for this tip!
Glad you showed us this organizing post today. I have two drawers like that. Been like that for several years. After reading your post today I know what to do about mine. Thanks Kristi.
OH boy! I have several drawers like that too. I buy organizers, but it never is the correct size so it does waste space. I am totally going to do what you did. The only thing I did right in a while is buy a battery box I saw advertised and it is like a two sided toolbox, and I can get SO many batteries stashed in there. I love it, as I can always quickly see what I need, and what I need to buy soon. Love the way you did it…can I really throw our all these cables? I have NO clue what they are for…😩 You always give us such great ideas and solutions! Thank you.
Oh happy day that’s so satisfying!
It is my goal to get to the point where even the insides of drawers and closets are beautiful! After all, they’re part of the house too. LOVE your organized cord and battery drawer- it’s very inspiring!
You are so sweet for sharing. My mess is too much for me to bare. Thank you for letting us in to see.
You’re awesome at everything you do!
Looks really great, and would make me smile every time I opened the drawer and seen that 💞
Your cord and battery drawer is a stroke of genius and a work of art!
Well done, young lady!
Well you blew my mind with the 1/4″ poplar hot glued together for an organizer!! That is something I can DO. Thank you 🙂