Chic on a Shoestring Decorating: How to Organize a Medicine Cabinet


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How to Organize a Medicine Cabinet

Hey there!  Welcome back to another installment of my series:


I'm going to share with you another hot mess cabinet makeover.  I actually did this makeover about 2 years ago and the system is working wonderfully, it is still clean and organized!  The best part is that it's simple so it's easy to keep it organized (and of course it was cheap to do too!)

First, where are you keeping your medicine?  In the medicine cabinet in your bathroom?  That would make sense since it is called the "medicine" cabinet.  However,  did you know that it's a very big no-no to keep medicines in the bathroom? 

So why do they put the medicine cabinet in there??  I have no idea?!

This is a more serious no-no than you might think. 

""The medicine cabinet in the bathroom is the worst place (for medicine to be stored)," said Selig Corman, director of Professional Affairs at the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York.  Most medicine should be stored at room temperature, between 68 and 77 degrees, and kept away from moisture. Because the bathroom is prone to high temperatures and humidity, it is a poor place to keep drugs.
"An egg kept at an extreme temperature of heat becomes cooked and that could happen with tablets, with certain gelatin capsules, and that could alter the chemistry of the product." Corman said. "Something as simple as aspirin ... when aspirin reacts with moisture it becomes a different chemical ... something that is sold as a corn remover. You wouldn't want to ingest a corn remover."" 

Yuck! I had no idea a bathroom could do so much damage to medications!

Thankfully, I do not store medication in the bathroom but wanted to make sure all of you lovely folks are storing your drugs safely too. 

Now that you've got them in a safe place let's get them organized! 

Go through all of your meds and make sure to get rid of everything that is expired or wasn't properly stored and could have turned into corn remover.  Ummm, gross!

Then get rid of everything that doesn't belong with the medicine.  This will vary depending on how much space you have.  We have a large enough space that our medicine cabinet includes band-aids, hand sanitizer and a small safety kit. 

I am SO completely embarassed to be showing you all this picture of our medicine cabinet. I was very tempted to straighten it up a little bit as to not scare and disgust you but I wanted it to be real, no editing. This is what it looked like at it's worst... those with faint hearts and weak stomachs look away!



Holy cow, we look like druggies!


Keeping it real up in here with that photo.  I'm blaming the mess on Mr. Chic, (sorry babe!) :) I tried to organize it when we moved in but he never quite got the set up (which wasn't very good anyway) so if he needed something he would just start rifling through it and it would end up looking like this. Nice, huh. :)



I went to the Dollar Store and got me some fancy plastic baskets. I then made sure they fit in my weird size cabinet... to my shock, they did! I then prettied them up with dog tags and ribbon...






and Waa-Laaa!






I made 3 baskets like this and one smaller one to fit in the weird leftover space in the front. Kid's Meds, Adult Meds, and Band-Aids, etc.  The small one in the front has everyday meds like vitamins, some chapstick, and a few band-aids for easy access. 

The end result is lovely but the lighting of my picture is not, it was a cloudy day.




And, it's actually stayed like this for two years!! Sweeeeeet!!   It works! Even the insides of the baskets are staying pretty neat, amazing! I feared that hubs would revert to old bad habits but he puts everything back in the right basket, he loves organization. Guess I need to organize more often! :)

Is your medication organized?  Did you know you're not supposed to keep them in the bathroom??

10 comments :

  1. Perfect and I love the colors you chose!

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  2. I totally need to do this. Nice to hear it's worked well for a long time.

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  3. corn remover...eewwww! Thank god I don't keep mine in the bathroom! I've been following your organizing and I've been learning a lot! Keep it up!(I hope you do one on art/craft rooms!):O)

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  4. I started to organize my medicine storage by mistake on Monday. I was looking for some Benadryl and realized that the 2 pills I had left had expired. Thank goodness they print the date on the pill packet and not just the box. By the end of cleaning out the cabinet, I ended up throwing out 90% of the contents that had expired. I guess I can start organizing now with a clean slate.

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  5. Nice post- loving this series! FYI reading in my olphonw (android) and both in Google reader and mobile version in mythe browser (dolphin), all the pictures in this post are half off the screen to the right (can't see the whole thing). This isn't the case with other posts, or when I cluck on web version link on my phone. Maybe it's just me....

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  6. This looks great! I so need to do this with my meds! I found you through Someday Crafts. Thanks for sharing! :)

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  7. Great idea! I have medicines in the bathroom and the two plastic bins I have are way too big to ever stay organized. So, I am headed over to the dollar store on the way home tonight to pick up some new cheap baskets and I am SO DOING THIS!!!

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