OK…so they don’t really have junk. It just looks like it at first glance. I’m sure I’m not alone in having a drawer in the kitchen that is just a mess, and defies organizing. Ours has spatulas (including for the grill), BBQ tongs, whisks, a meat hammer, various mesh strainers (including a spider), and some other stuff.
Has anyone found a good organizing solution for a drawer like this? I’ve hunted in physical stores, and online, and not really found anything very useful.
Early in 2025 we remodeled our kitchen. My wife took reorganizing drawer storage as her key project. Our primary goal for the new kitchen was more and improved storage. This goal was accomplished by custom cabinets and elimination of shelves below the counters. And elimination of shelves inside too floor-to-ceiling 36 inch wide pantries. We now actually have empty shelves. This was done without increasing the footprint!
The storage solutions we use for our junk drawer and our utensil drawer are the expandable dividers. We also have various sizes of bamboo drawer organizers. Search for drawer organizers at Amazon.
For some reason I can not include a link to the dividers - in Amazon search for “Drawer Dividers Bamboo 2.6" High, 16-22" Adjustable” — the ones we got at in the Bambusi Store.
I have one of those ceramic utensil holders on the counter. It holds whisks, bowl scrapers, spider, wooden spoons, the long tongs that are hinged at the end. Getting the whisks and spider in particular out of the drawers works well for me, but also the long stuff.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ceramic+kitchen+utensil+holder.
That is probably my only useful suggestion.
I have a good supply of drawers. One narrow one has a plastic silverware organizer with five sections for ordinary sizes and one for serving utensils. A second narrow drawer has an adjustable bamboo organizer with compartments used for steak knives, measuring spoons, bottle openers, other stuff. To the left of the stove is the third narrow drawer that gets cooking utensils I use regularly. Big spoons and ladles, pancake turners (spatulas to everyone else), scissor-style tongs, pizza cutter, ice cream scoops. And then there is the big junk drawer. That has a few small bamboo compartments to keep small stuff under control, but is otherwise chaos. It holds everything else, mostly specialized tools that are not used very often, if at all. It is large enough that things can’t get very lost.
This is what I got when I did that:
Our drawer is a bit deeper. Probably 8” or so. The solutions on Amazon appear to be very limiting. Nothing big enough to hold the BBQ tongs, spatulas, or BBQ brush. The picture you posted seems to be better than all of these. Still shallow, but better. They run the full length of the drawer, which we need for some items.
We do have “jars” on the counter (one ceramic, one metal) with things stored in them. Mostly wooden spoons, a couple of spatulas (including wood…we’ve mostly moved to wooden after the revelations about black plastics, and metal can scratch even non-PFAS pans), a ladle or two, etc. We don’t store the whisks there because we don’t use them much. The counter jars are for frequently used tools. But when we need a tool not stored in them, it’s the “junk drawer”.
Appreciating all input thus far.
You could get two of these and put one on top of the other for a stack about 5 inches tall. I am assuming that height is your reservation.
Only semi organized in one drawer in our kitchen, the knives n forks, spoons.. All the others, a bit of this or that, Knife holder and one gifted ceramic jobber for wood spoons, spatulas n such…
New bath Koehler vanities have bamboo organizers in the drawers, but even there, nothing is ever the right size, shape to make them all that handy…
Chaos Rules!
That is no way shape or form is a “junk drawer”. Our kitchen and my study each have a junk drawer. It’s that place where things wind up when you can’t figure out where to put them. It is the ultimate menagerie.
Our junk drawer has both an “organized space” (ha!) and a larger area for things which don’t fit.
I must say, that is an impressive number of eyeglasses.
I think that defines my office/cave as well as my workshop lately… Start a project, finish, but move on to the next without reworking much order to any of it! A tad overwhelming now, this was a while back, hasn’t improved… Almost knew where everything is if I stand in the middle and scan the area! 
I’m famous for starting a project, not finishing it, leaving it around, and maybe months later picking it up again and finishing it. I tell Mrs. Goofyhoofy all projects are “beta” until confirmed finished, which rarely happened. I have reworked a few twice, sometimes three times. (She understands, she’s a gardener and transplants things again and again until she[s happy with them.)
As for your workshop, I think I’m running a close second as far as “messy goes.
These look interesting. But I don’t think 2.4” height will suit my needs. I do like that they use the existing drawer, and you can decide how large you want any given “compartment” to be.
Based on your post that is what I expected. That said, you might want to consider ordering a batch of 4. You could verify if 2.4 is not adequate and you could stack 2 getting a divider that is almost 5 inches tall. Maybe it is because we place over 300 orders a year, but Amazon has been very gracious about handling our returns.
Hi @1poorguy,
I wanted to avoid the obvious, but, like me, you probably have a bunch of scrap wood. Oak, maple, pine, etc. I will guess you have tools, like me.
Why not Just Make Them! Exactly the size you want.
Save 30 bucks!
Does that help you?
Gene
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I do have tools, but the scrap wood is mostly 4x4 and 4x8. Left over from other large projects. I do have some laminated particle board cabinet doors that the garage cabinet guy had left over when he finished installing our cabinets. Most of them have some sort of damage (which is why he couldn’t use them, and so just left them).
And, honestly, I’m not sure the size I want. I can measure the drawer, of course. But should I go for drawer-length compartments, or have some half-drawer length, or maybe someone has thought “out of the box” and come up with a completely different configuration (e.g. some vertical storage, though I’m not sure how that would work).
This is a creative bunch here, and I was thinking someone might have come up with a clever solution that hadn’t occurred to me.
I once had a clever solution, but never found anything. Open the drawer, and you are presented with two trays. Pull them up, and they open like a tackle box. For a deep drawer, that might make maximum use of the volume. Our drawer is 8” deep, 21” long, 17” wide.
One configuration I have seen, but can’t point you to, would be a bottom layer that covers the entire space, with compartments, and an upper layer that is smaller front to back but exactly as wide as the bottom, and slides on it. Forward to use the top, backward for access to the bottom. Generally designed as a set.
It would be trivial to build this. For the bottom layer: do nothing.
For the top layer, build a shelf exactly the same width as the interior, but only half the distance front-to-back. Install a couple of “door stop” or other square dowels for it to slide on, measure, draw a line, tack in place, put half-drawer on those runners, slide back and forth.
If you must, make the top layer the same size, and just lift it in and out to access the stuff on the bottom.
Interesting idea (one of several). I knew this was the right place to pose this question. It can slide on the rails, or be removable entirely (for long objects on the bottom, you would need to remove it). That would enable using the volume of the drawer more efficiently.
Might not be able to use dowels as I don’t think I have the proper tools to drill mounting holes well (we’d want them to be snug up against the sides). But I could make a frame with supports on the four corners, and the compartment would then slide on that.
Hmmm…
I didn’t mean round dowels; at HD they have “square dowels’, about 3/8”x3/8”, which you could just tack to the sides of the drawers - to serve as “slides” for the top 1/2-drawer.
In fact you could probably just hot glue them in place, assuming you weren’t going to put heavy weight or dense materials in the sliding shelf. But personally I’d add a couple of staples or brads just to give is some mechanical advantage as well.
(And the top doesn’t even have to be a “drawer”. It could just as easily be a simple piece of luan cut to size which serves as a sort of mini-shelf.)
