Small Ways | Kitchen Drawers
Simple. Reachable. Doable. Small ways. They pack enough punch to change your world, or your day. Or maybe, simply and gloriously, they’ll change your moment. Small Ways is a series about small objects, small gestures, small touches. Small ways for living well.
There’s a bank of drawers in the kitchen. Four drawers to keep the flow flowing and the working kitchen working. Easy open, easy close. Dip in, grab the spoon, the whisk, the wonky stack of cups, bump it shut with your hip as you turn toward the counter with your handful of goods.
Way back in the building phase of our house, I asked the cabinet maker to build the kitchen drawers in specific heights, because I knew what I was going to keep in each and the tallest things had to fit. If there’s ever a better idea than having your drawers built to the perfect height, I want to be the first to know. It’s like living with tiny miracles, which, of course, you then want to chatter on about to whoever will be still enough to listen.
I’m glad you’re being still enough to listen. (One day if you’re having drawers built, you’ll know what to do.)
If you already have drawers, don’t fuss about how tall or short they are. Just do your best with what you have. Empty them completely, wipe them clean, and line them with cork. Thankfully, we can all do this. A cork-lined drawer is a natural, sustainable, durable, pretty little thing. And maybe best of all, sitting on cork, the contents of the drawer aren’t as apt to slide around. Simply unroll, measure, cut the cork to size with scissors, and set it in place.
Then, put your things thoughtfully back, each drawer, it’s own container for like-minded things: flatware in one (including steak knives, spreaders, straws - the things you might use in table settings), cooking tools in another, baking tools in a third, and so on. It’s another tiny miracle when you open a drawer and find it organized, pretty, and holding every tool you need for the task at hand. Now, drawer organizers? I don’t know. Maybe you need them; maybe you don’t. Aside from using a flatware tray and a small bin or tiny basket (or two) to hold the little things, you may find that initially arranging the items in your drawers in an organized way, then returning them to their places each time they’re used, is the simplest organizing system there is, and it costs nothing of you in shopping or buying.
I draw the top drawer open and reach for the big silver spoon with the nice sharp edge, the one I use for scooping squash seeds. Second drawer down, I reach for a wooden spoon. Third drawer down, the wonky stack of measuring cups and the porcelain spoon rest. Dinner is in the making.
Have questions about these drawers or things you see in them? Ask away!