Is packing a lunch (or three) part of your morning routine? Would you like a way to streamline it just a little bit before the school year starts again? (It'll be here before you know it.) One mother repurposed an old drawer into a sandwich station that she says helps her throw packed lunches together in less time than ever.
This project comes from Curbly community member Miki40. She found an old drawer, painted it, and hung it on the wall after adding places to store plastic wrap, paper towels, napkins, rubber bands and other lunch sack supplies. She even added a cork board on the side. This could be used for recipes, sticky-notes for your children's lunchboxes, and more.
The whole thing is mounted on the wall in a small corner of the kitchen, over a little workspace where she can assemble lunches quickly.
• See the whole project: How To: Make a Sandwich Station from a Recycled Drawer at Curbly
I am impressed by her ingenuity! Hey — when packing lunches for more than two people at some ungodly hour of the morning, every little bit of organization helps!
Related: How To Make Your Own Lunch Box Ice Packs
(Images: Miki40/Curbly)
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Cute but Tupperware would result in a lot less waste per day.
Is everything in that drawer disposable?
How would you cut the plastic wrap? That looks like a nightmare without some type of built-in cutter. Even scissors make plastic wrap turn into a tangled, static-y mess.
Sure, the drawer is recycled, but everything else just turns into waste!
I'm with the others. It looks cute, but it's a waste machine. Reusable plastic containers and cloth napkins all the way!
I can't even get my 43 year old husband to bring containers home. If you folks have trained children to do so, you are far better people than me.
@rep_woman: are you seriously saying your husband takes tupperware to work and doesn't bring it home? Thats easily avoidable: just let him pay for the new tupperwar with his own money. Same with children: tupperware that doesn't come back gets replaced by however lost it.
I'm not going to judge this mom for the disposable wraps and bags- packing lunch for kids (and husbands, apparently) is tough and she may have her reasons for needing to use all this stuff. But, aside from the environmental benefits, I think it's much easier to use multi-compartment containers like www.easylunchboxes.com. There's a little place for everything, only one container and one lid so not much to lose, and no annoying clinging plastic, etc. As for getting the kids to bring this stuff home, I put cute little washable lables on the bottoms and tops so the kids know what's their's and want to get it back. My husband prepares his own lunch and manages to bring home the containers, but if others can't, etsy has a wide variety of labels- maybe you can find a husband-appropriate selection!
I agree with ek76 I don't want to judge this mum but I do feel that this idea would have some wow factor if it incorporated reusable containers and cloth napkins.
I find cloth napkins the easiest way to wrap up sandwiches and they look so cute!
Let's be honest - when you look at the majority of people who aren't on websites such as TheKitchn, etc. most of them aren't as green as all of you are proclaiming to be. The majority of americans use plastic wrap and paper napkins. Using what this family is comfortable with and also streamlining the process is ingenious and I applaud the family for being creative.
This would also be a fantastic way to store other rolls of things like parchment paper and butcher paper that I keep around. Love it!
I teach Pre-K and must tell you that while the divided containers with one lid might look wonderful, they are not. I cannot begin to tell you how much food I've seen thrown away due to moisture from the adjoining compartment causing the other food items to be mushy, or in some cases saturated! Moist and dry foods simply don't work packaged under one lid. I don't blame the kids. Who wants a stale chip, cracker, etc ... Not to mention a soggy sandwich.
For a while we were very green when it came to kitchen waste but I was losing precious storage space having to have so many containers. Our lunches typically consisted of fruit, drink, sandwich or salad, and chips plus an after school snack to make it through sports practices multiply that by 4. I have to admit it was far easier when our children were younger but as teenagers... there has been more food to pack and a much tinier kitchen due to a move (over 3000 miles). So now we use paper and plastic bags (often reused several times), sold most of the plastic storage ware and have a little breathing room in our little kitchen. We still use 1/2 pint mason jars for such things as jello or yogurt though!
what a neat idea! thanks for sharing!