In a fit of frustration a few weekends back, I took half an hour to organize my spice cabinet, which is also my medicine cabinet.  We store our medicines and vitamins, not in the bathroom like most people do, but in the kitchen where we have access to a sink with running water and a glass in which to hold the water.  I know that one could do this in the bathroom, too, but I have this weird thing about drinking or eating anything in a bathroom.

I was so inspired to clean out this cabinet that I forgot to take before photos.  (Such a rookie mistake!)  Trust me when I tell you that it was an eyesore.

The medicines were somewhat categorized, but not well.  The bottles had outgrown the small baskets that originally containerized them, so there were bottles that were thrown haphazardly onto the shelves.  The bottom shelf that held the spices were in a similar rough shape.

My spices used to be stored in a drawer, but I found it wasn’t very functional for me.  I went out and bought a bunch of magnetic spice jars to hang on the back of the upper cabinet door.  For the magnetic board, I cut a piece of joist lining, like I used in my office.  I haven’t had a chance to find the perfect material to cover the lining with, which is why it is still bare.  As I did this organization on the fly, I didn’t spend much time labeling the jars with pretty labels.  I probably will some day, but for now, it worked just fine to use my label maker.

Inside the cabinet, I kept a basket of extra spices to be filled into the spice jars (located behind the salt jars).  The Kosher salt and sea salt used to be stored in their original boxes, which didn’t look very nice or work very well.  These were transferred into glass flip-top jars that I found at Value Village.  Now, the spice portion of the cabinet looks so much neater and cleaner.

The medicines and vitamins, located in the upper two shelves of the cabinet were logically divided into baskets.  All cold and flu medicines were grouped with hand warmers in one basket because these items are usually most often used in the cooler seasons.  Band-aids, gauze and tape, Neosporin were stored inside a First-Aid Kit that is easy to grab in the case of emergency.  Vitamins were corralled in their own baskets.  Allergy medicines were stored with bug repellent wrist bands (these were purchased and left over from our wedding ceremony in France) as these items are mostly used in the warmer seasons.  All baskets were labelled so we can easily and quickly find what we need.

There you have it!  My medicine/spice cabinet all organized.  Feels so good to have my ducks in a row.  In time, after I’ve finished all the other major projects on my list, I’ll take a moment to jazz up the spice jar labels, magnetic board, and the shelf liners.  I’ll definitely share the update with you when I get it done.  Stay tuned!

Total time: Getting the medicine cabinet organized took half an hour.  Transferring all my spices to the magnetic jars took another half hour.

Total cost: After taxes, this reorganization project cost $76.45.  I still need a few more spice jars, though, so this price will increase a bit.

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