Organizing Your Kitchen Medications

After completing hundreds of projects with clients over the last couple of years I’ve noticed that many have a need to keep medications in the kitchen area. This makes sense considering often times medications, including vitamins, are taken in the morning or at meal times so they need to be handy and accessible.

Rather than having your various daily medications sitting haphazardly in various spots in the kitchen or throughout your home I recommend keeping them contained and stored in one spot in the kitchen.  This way you will always know where to go to retrieve and return your medications.

Avoid the chaos.

In our home my husband kept his medicines in our kitchen cupboard in the same cabinet as we had our small portable coffee grinder. Inevitably I would pull the grinder out only to have a number of small medicine bottles come crashing down on the counter or spilling onto the floor.  Sometimes I would find them in various spots on the kitchen counter. I would roll my eyes every time this happened until it occurred to me that there is an easy fix.

Gather all your daily vitamins and medicines.

To begin with I pulled all the various daily vitamins and medicines out of that kitchen cabinet.  I also checked around the house to see what other medications were used on a daily basis, especially those that would be consumed in the kitchen.  It’s important to note that any medications that have expired should not be consumed and should be tossed.  You can return them safely to your pharmacist rather than tossing them in the garbage, down the drain or toilet bowl.

Group and contain for ease of retrieval and return.

Any medications and vitamins I found that were consistently consumed in the kitchen were grouped together.  Once I saw the volume (which, thankfully, was not too many) I was then able to determine the correct sized container in which to store them safely.  I purchased a clear acrylic bin that was about three inches high and eight inches long and placed not only the daily vitamins but also the daily prescription medications. I then relocated that acrylic bin to another, more easily accessible shelf in the kitchen cabinet, away from direct sunlight and away from any heat source (both of which can deteriorate and reduce the effectiveness of vitamins and medicine).

Now whenever it’s time to take a vitamin or medication we simply and easily pull out the entire bin, quickly locate what we need and return it promptly to the bin and back into the cupboard. No more falling bottles and medicines cluttering up our kitchen counters.

Medications should be stored in the place that they are used.  Therefore if you use them in the kitchen then that is where they should live. Contained and easily accessible.