One of my favorite things about our kitchen is that our island has large drawers. They’re 25″ on the interior, which means we can store a lot in them. The downside? It’s hard to contain chaos with that much space!
One of my missions this year is to get a lot of little spaces in our home organized, and this week, I’m focusing on our silverware drawer. I built a really simple DIY wooden drawer organizer and it’s making me really (really!) happy to see things so organized!
This post is sponsored by DAP.
Our old silverware drawer organizer was (quite literally) falling apart, despite being only a couple of years old. I’m not sure if we’re just really hard on it or what, but it’s been making me a little nutty for weeks now.
My intention with this project was to organize our silverware and a few other things in this drawer with a wooden drawer organizer that is as simple as possible to put together. I didn’t want to do anything super fancy or complicated here.
In fact, I wanted to be able to assemble it with just glue. Nothing else!
I reached out to my contacts at DAP, because they’re my go-to for all adhesives, and they said they had the perfect product for me. Weldwood Instant Wood Adhesive is a new product that cures in just 30 minutes and is really easy to use. It was exactly what I was looking for – something that would act as an instant adhesive but still give me a little wiggle room (this is adjustable for up to 3 minutes).
I asked them to send me some ASAP and as soon as it got here I got to work. This project was so simple, largely thanks to the Weldwood glue – not having to deal with screws or nails or anything else made the project go so, so fast!
Here’s a before and after to show you what a big difference it made for us!
DIY wooden drawer organizer: Planning
Let’s start by chatting about how I planned out this whole thing.
First off, I made a list of everything that I needed to store in the drawer, by category. I also numbered everything so it was easy to keep track when I was drawing it out.
Then, I took some measurements and sketched out a rough idea of what I wanted it to look like.
I used our existing organization system as a bit of a template here – I liked the basic layout of the drawer, just needed something a little more functional. After playing around and planning a bit, here’s the drawing I landed on:
It’s a rough sketch, but it was enough to get started!
I also made sure to measure the depth of the drawer – it’s just over 3″ deep. I made the larger dividers (that separate things other than silverware) 3″ tall, and I made the silverware dividers 1.5″ tall. The different heights look really nice and make a good distinction between the two sections!
how to assemble the silverware drawer organizer
Materials Needed
- Half sheet of 1/2″ plywood
- Weldwood Instant Wood Adhesive
- Circular saw (learn how to use one here!)
- Measuring tape (see my favorite one and a few tips here)
cut wood strips
After you’ve got your drawing all planned out, you’re ready to cut your wood strips!
Here’s a labeled drawing of our organizer so you can get an idea of the spacing I used on mine:
There isn’t anything scientific happening here, I just measuring my existing silverware drawer organizer and the drawer itself and kind of did what made sense to me.
But, generally speaking, these measurements should work for most silverware!
Test fit
A very important step before you start actually assembling is to test fit your wooden drawer organizer! You don’t have to be too precious about it, but I set everything into the drawer and played around a bit to make sure that everything I wanted to put in there would actually fit.
Take the time to measure things out, set it where it would go, and place a few things into the compartments you create.
It would be awful to assemble the whole thing and then realize nothing fits. Just take the time to do it now!
Glue drawer organizer together
Once you’ve ensured your plans will work and everything is appropriately placed, you’re ready to glue it up!
You don’t need a ton of the Weldwood Instant Wood Adhesive. It doesn’t need to be overflowing the seams or anything like that. Just put a line of glue on the side of your plywood, place it up against the other piece of wood, and clamp it into place.
You’ll likely need to work in stages. Thankfully, since the glue sets up in just 30 minutes it doesn’t take terribly long. I was able to put mine together with just three rounds of drying. Just set up what you can easily clamp, let it dry, then once it’s done you can remove the clamps and add some more pieces.
It’s really satisfying to watch this come together.
Or maybe I’m just easily excited by new organization systems.
Either way, I found this to be incredibly fun.
add to drawer, and get organizing!
Once everything is fully dry, you’re ready to slip it into place! I specifically made something that could easily be set into the drawer and pulled back out because I have commitment issues when it comes to this sort of things an I didn’t want to alter my drawer in any way.
It fits more or less like a glove (that was the goal!), and doesn’t move around at all.
I got to work placing everything in the drawer and, y’all, it’s SO GOOD!
I can’t believe I waited so long to do this. And honestly, now I want to do it in every drawer in my entire kitchen.
I open the drawer every few hours even if I don’t need to, just to remind myself how organized it is. Is that normal?
If you’ve got a drawer in your kitchen that drives you a little nutty every day, this is a great solution. It only took me a couple of hours to put together, and I was able to use scrap wood from my garage, so it was free!
Click here to grab yourself some Weldwood Instant Wood Adhesive. It’s definitely going to be my new go-to for projects like this!
Other organizing projects you may love
- Art Closet Organization
- DIY Pull-Out Drawer for Pots & Pans
- DIY Spice Drawer Organizer
- How to Declutter Your Home in 30 Days
- Workshop Organization Tips & Tricks
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