Monday, October 12, 2015

Medicine Organization

Every home has some medications, for seasonal illnesses, pain, personal health conditions, supplements, something or the other. Where do you store them? Do you really store any of them in medicine cabinets in bathroom? I always had this question. Does anybody really store medicines in medicine cabinets in their bathrooms? I personally don't like it. It is a humid place, not ideal for medications. Plus, how do we take them in bathroom? If we don't why should we store them in there? If we don't store them in there why are they called medicine cabinets? Anyway, I store them in linen closet.

When it was just the two of us, we had very minimal supply. So I stored them in a craft store photo box. Then the kid came along and our supply grew. I added another box, but it still wasn't enough. Some of them were placed next to the boxes in the closet. When we moved to this house 5 months ago we put them all in a small cardboard box and they stayed there for past 5 months. Kid was sick 6 times in past 5 months, we used up and bought more and added to the box, but did not figure out how to keep them organized. Did not take time to do it I guess.

I was actually planning to conquer under the kitchen sink after referring to Jen's post @ iHeartOrganizing that I pinned back in July. I made a list of items to buy from The Container Store and part of it was Clear Shoe Box. I was hoping to use a wider box to hold more items so I also purchased the Clear Shirt & Accessory Drawer with divider set. 





After coming home I realized our plumbing was blocking it a tab bit, I couldn't shut the cabinet door. So I had to use the smaller Shoe box. But a light bulb went off in my head and BOOM! this happened.


The dividers worked perfectly to group items by purpose. I finally broken the packaging of my almost 2 years old brand new label machine and labelled the sections. I grouped and named according to what works for our family. I left couple of them for miscellaneous items. 




Slide the drawer in and its all neatly organized.


Now I don't have to dig through adult medication to find the children's tylenol or fish for the thermometer when my daughter gets sick in the middle of the night.


Since the larger bottle didn't fit in the drawer and all those big bottles are supplements, I put them all in a basket and kept on kitchen counter so we can see and remember to take them.


So what didn't work for one area in the home worked like a charm for another. These Clear drawer boxes are so versatile and have a clean and modern look. Only complaint I have with this organization project is that I couldn't place this box in upper linen cabinets since these are 14 inches deep. It's ok, I will store them in lower cabinets. Over all I am very happy with it. Thanks to Jen for inspiration for my Under Kitchen Sink organization which led to this. For under kitchen sink, I literally copied her ideas because they were awesome. I will show that area soon. Have a good rest of the week.