Tool Time Organizing

Most people have a junk drawer in the kitchen, I don't.  All my drawers serve a purpose.  There's a drawer for pens, pencils, tape, etc.  But I don't call it a junk drawer because I don't want anyone else to think that they can just drop whatever into it.  In addition to the school supplies drawer, I have a tool drawer.  Others might call this a "man drawer," like in a GardenWeb discussion last autumn, but since this drawer is specifically for the tools that I(decidedly not a man) want to keep in the house, I call it a tool drawer.

When we bought this house, we divvied up who got control of what spaces.  CG got the garage and outside of the house, and I got the inside of the house.  Not really a fair distribution, but that's the way it is.  CG's garage is not someplace I choose to spend any significant amount of time in.  It's poorly lit, messy, and smells damp.  So I like to keep a small set of tools inside for small projects like hanging art on the wall, paint touchups, etc.

This is what the tool drawer looked like this morning.

Someone (not me) heard me say, "my tool drawer" and interpreted that to mean "random junk drawer."  This is everything that was in that drawer spread out across the peninsula.  Keep in mind that the peninsula is 40" across by nearly 7' and this stuff covered a good chunk of the counter.

I first started by tossing and recycling everything that could leave the house.  A receipt for dry ice?  Really?  Why, why?  I then made a pile of things that could go to the garage.  I only need 1 flat head and 1 phillips screwdriver in the house not 7 of each, 1 set of allen wrenches, not 2, etc.  Duplicate items went into this pile as well as things like ear protection and drill bits.  It doesn't make sense to have those items in my house tools when I'd need to go to the garage for the power tools.

I also found new homes for some items.  This mini tool kit would be great for keeping in the car and CG's tabletop camera tripod belongs in his office.

And Here's the drawer after all that purging.  1 of each of the items that I might use for a craft project or quick fix.  I very nearly drew around each item with sharpie(the drawer is lined) to encourage others to put things away properly, but thought that might be too anal.

Thanks for popping in and organizing with me.  What do you think sharpie or not?  I'd love to hear how you fight junkdraweritis or if you just give in to it.