Join this week's Key Purge. Last year we washed our house keys for the first time, this year we sorted and threw many away. It took guts, but we collected up the drawer full of old keys, completed and labeled any sets we recognized (above). Then - with our heart in our mouth - we THREW the rest away...
It felt totally counter intuitive, but the truth is we'd had all of them sitting in the drawer for over 7 years and never used most of them. It wasn't so hard to tell which were still useful. We feel a lot lighter now.
Keys are a unique and difficult part of our lives to organize. Useless in themselves, they exist only to be combined with a lock which we may or may not like as most locks are necessary evils. Hence, keys are largely unconscious beings within our daily lives.
Which is why they are so easy to lose.
And they grow wild with time. New keys come into your life when locks are changed, you move in with a mate, you get a bike or your friend gives you their keys for safekeeping. If you're good, you label them every time and you throw out those that are no longer linked to an active lock, but all too often we DON'T label them quick enough and we forget what they are for. Then they grow and we are afraid to clean them out.
This week - for Spring Cleaning - we invite all our readers to clean out their keys. Go ahead and do it. It'll take you all of twenty minutes and the gratification you will get from the process is priceless.
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
Is there anything one can do with old keys besides throwing them out? Does everybody just toss them?
view bubble's profile
Excellent idea. I did this last year and since we had a TON of keys, I color coded them for easy spotting of which key is the first to use. The best effective way is to label them RBG (it is a technical code that stands for Red Blue Green) So the red key is to the first door, the blue to the second and the green to the third. Black stands for garage etc. I am sure anyone can make their own interpretation. I did the same for my tenants and it seems they like it, bcs they did the same with their duplicate key sets which made me laugh. :-)
view Anusha73's profile
I did a two-step process of this...I put all the keys that I thought I could get rid of in a sealed dated envelope and stored it. After a year or so, when I still hadn't needed any of them, I got rid of it without worrying.
view janel's profile
It seems like throwing them out would be a waste- My mother is an elementary school teacher and I can just imagine all the crafts and projects she could do with them. Maybe the local key-cutter knows what to do with them or would want them??
view canadian in swedish clothing's profile
Yes, recycle (if possible) and reuse! A great wall display or jewelry, maybe?
view Lisa from VA/lsaspacey's profile
I think it's a great idea to weed out keys you don't use, and maybe even make them into an adult's or teen's art project. But I wouldn't use them for kid's artwork or anything hung at kid level. Many keys have lead in them, which in addition to the germs, is why you should also never let your baby play with them.
view KatieD's profile
I don't throw my old keys out - I have a metal canister full of them, where they're waiting to be put together into some sort of art project. Except, so far, I don't have enough keys to do what I want - just a couple handfuls after all these years. Hm, must have lost some keys along the way. Or maybe they're still hiding somewhere.
view Sea's profile
I don't have that many keys, so this isn't a huge issue for me, but I find that some keys I'm reluctant to throw out because they have sentimental value. I still have the key to my college mailbox. I have a key to my first car, too. And oddly enough, I have a handcuff key on my keychain that reminds me of a stint working with civil disobedients. I can't imagine throwing them away!
view anneinJP's profile
A few years ago I had a horrific roll over accident in my Jeep Wrangler and promised my entire family that I wouldn't buy another one. I now drive a Focus, but I keep that Jeep key on my keychain, it reminds me everyday to pay attention on the road and to live everyday like it's my last because you never know.
view lorijo's profile
lorijo, a friend of mine witnessed an SUV flip over on the freeway. I'll never own one.
view LaDonnaNichole's profile
Why would you keep keys that aren't on your keychain? - I don't understand why you have keys that you'd keep in a drawer somewhere - I don't own anything in my house that uses a key to open it so I'm always outside when I use keys (to get into the house (multiple keys), garage, car, friends house, bicycle lock, work) so how would keys in a drawer be useful?
view Violetsrose's profile
Violetsrose,
I guess because the fewer keys you have to carry around everywhere, the better. I have keys that I use only infrequently (to the storage space in the basement of my building, to my vacant property that's on the market, to my parents' house in another city) and there's no need to carry those around everywhere. I also have a small keychain that has only my building and apartment door keys that I take when I go running. Again, no need to be lugging around a huge ring of keys like a prison guard. :)
view Anne in Chicago's profile
I weeded through my keys not long ago and have a small bunch to get rid of but I didn't want to toss them. But, I can't figure out how to recycle or reuse. So, they're collecting dust...
view Pixie's profile
There's someone on freecycle in nyc who wants old keys for an art project. I promised him mine but haven't finished my weeding yet. Maybe one of those old keys opens something important...
view mamabear's profile