I am proud to say that I don't have this drawer. I grew up in a house with this drawer and always hated it. Nothing new is added to the kitchen without considering the actual need and anything that goes unused for any length of time is getting reevaluated.

Could you un max out other areas? Eliminate duplicates elsewhere so things in this drawer could be moved to the newly made space?

Nobody has this drawer. They're all lying to you, it's some big in-joke like that reddit thread where that person was asking how to switch from Spanish to English and everybody replied in Spanish. You should stand your ground and tell your wi--I can't even joke about the level of gaslighting that would entail. Everybody has this drawer.

I'll be honest though, the scales are a poor fit and probably make it way more cramped. You can stand those up sideways at the edge of a cupboard or in whatever place that you keep cutting boards, because they're a similar shape.

Depending on how often each thing is used, you could optimise by figuring out a hanging solution for some of them. That's quite a common thing, hanging under cupboards or on the backsplash part of the wall. Your wife might appreciate something like that as long as it's agreed on. You'll never totally get rid of this though.

I have a knife drawer with 2/3 of these objects in it and a measuring tool drawer witj 1/3 of these items. My junk drawer contains literally nothing in this drawer.

What is the green thing with the white blades?

I have a large silverware drawer with a silverware tray. The area around the silverware tray is that drawer though

Not in my house: We have like, 4 or 5 of that drawer. Between me and my wife we have a shitload of kitchen gadgets and accessories.

Ah yes. The “nonsense drawer” as my youngest labeled it. It has stuck. In my parents family it was called the junk drawer.

3d printed some Gridfinity stuff and fixed a couple of these drawers. The rest are under way.

We don't have one like that. Though most of our kitchen is well organized in drawers.

To say what others have said in a different way. Yes, in almost any categorisation system, you're gonna need to deal with some misc haha.

Where else could these things possibly go? (minus the scales, which in my opinion belong on some flat surface in a cupboard of countertop somewhere, since I use my scales all the time)

We have one of these drawers at home, also. I think your wife is right on this one friend.

I regrettably also have this drawer.

Attempts at cleaning it usually end up with the drawer now being somewhere else, but it clings to life somehow.

I think they're just a fact of life at this point.

I have this drawer.

It's not a junk drawer.

It's an irregular kitchen items drawer.

It's just the cost of being someone who actually uses their kitchen. We have the garlic press, scissors, pizza cutter, bench scrapers, microplaners, thermometers, etc... in there. All useful things that fit poorly with other things, so they get a drawer all to themselves.

The junk drawer with batteries and twist ties is another drawer.

It can be sorted quite nicely if you get an organiser division thingy. Even if you're only going to keep one thing in each section, it's nice to have each thing in its own place. The difficulty with that is remembering where it's supposed to be, and that it takes more space.

A little basket is suitable for keeping most of those things if you simply accept that them being in the same basket is actually the correct placement for them.

Every family has this drawer

Not only does everyone have one of these, they suffer from quantum entanglement.

The problem is not the organization or lack thereof, the problem is that someone in your household buys too many niche specialized single-purpose kitchen tools. Wtf is that thing with the green handle?

I try to donate any kitchen tool that I haven't used in a year or two.

I have an entire spare dresser that has nothing but these drawers

Yes/no. We dont have a designated junk drawer, but theres one specific drawer we happen to throw random things into. I clean it out maybe twice a year during one of my adhd fueled hyper cleaning sessions.

A messy drawer? There should be at least two: one for the kitchen and one for general.

Yes. It's so common that it's been a well known joke in the UK for the last 16 years: The "Man" Drawer.

A junk drawer? ... yes, most houses have one.

We do

Your house is this drawer. Think about it.