WFMW: Medicine Cabinet Organization II

A LONG time ago (as in, before our most recent move...okay, not that long ago), I posted about organizing the medicine cabinet.

We had a teeny, tiny, little master bathroom in our last apartment. The under-sink cabinet was about a foot wide and about a foot deep. The medicine cabinet was about a foot wide and about four inches deep. And in that little master bathroom, we had to keep all our medicine cabinet, spare soap and shampoo, and anything else we wanted to keep out of the grubby little hands of our smalls. Just to make things more fun, the medicine cabinet only had one shelf, which was originally hidden in the under-sink cabinet because it was too deep for the medicine cabinet by about a quarter inch. Storage was a serious problem.

Then it hit me: Vertical Storage (insert angel choir music here)!


Here's what you're looking at:

• The alcohol swab box on the top left was only half-full, so I consolidated all our gauze into it as well.
  
• The instant coffee box (bought on clearance, I normally don't indulge in that kind of thing) contains bandages, ace bandages, thermometers, and medicine dispensers. I put the plastic lid on the bottom of that box, so that the metal could not leave rust marks on the shelf.
  
• Next to the coffee box is a roll of surgical tape. When space is limited, storing tape dispensers on their backs can be helpful.
  
• The deodorant is a spare tube; the ones that were in use at that time were stored on top of the medicine cabinet, where we can see them and small people can't reach them.
  
• On the bottom shelf, toward the left, is a Republic of Tea tin. It contains new razors, my hairbrush and clips, new toothbrushes and nail clippers clipped to the side. My compact mirror is leaning against the tin.
  
• On the right hand side of the bottom shelf are two Crystal Lite containers stripped of their labels--one for toothpaste (both child and adult) and tweezers and one for various and sundry tubed ointments.

Before organizing the medicine cabinet this way, all the ointments were stored under the sink, and we had to keep the bathroom locked in order to keep certain small people away from those tubes. The tape, gauze, bandages, thermometers, dispensers, and razors also had to stay under the sink. Meanwhile, one had to brave and avalanche of toothpaste and hair clips from the medicine cabinet in order to manage any daily personal hygiene.

Our new apartment does not have a medicine cabinet. Instead, it has a long counter with much storage underneath in the form of drawers and cabinets, so the system pictured above is now defunct. I do still have the alcohol swabs and gauze together and bandages in the coffee box in a drawer. The toothpaste now resides in the Republic of Tea tin, with the clippers and tweezers clipped to the side. My hair clips are in the clear Crystal Lite container, and lay sideways in an old wipe tub that now contains the ointment tubes.

While it might not work for me now, it sure worked for me then! And using what I have on hand ALWAYS works for me. Check out more ideas on Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.