The drawers to the left of my island stools are for medications and first aid type items. I don't keep a nebulizer handy anymore, but we have two of them. (Thankfully, they're not needed on a regular basis anymore so I have them stored in a closet.) The top drawer keeps my daily pill box and prescription medications (corralled in a plastic container) as well as my calendar and a few small plastic baskets containing odds and ends.
The middle drawer keeps most other medications, supplements, and boxes of bandaids and such. I keep a sharpie pen in the top drawer for writing the name of the medication/supplement on the top of the cap so everything is easy to identify at a glance without pulling items out.
The bottom drawer is for extra items (I often buy at Costco and have two big bottles at a time, the extra goes in here) as well as some extra dish towels that I use before I set hot or wet items down on my wood topped island.
The top drawer is my favorite... I often sit at the island for breakfast and my medications are right next to me already. I've been wary of having people I might not know well in my home possibly seeing/stealing some of my prescriptions... my hubby has offered to put a lock mechanism on that top drawer... he said he could install it quickly if I ever decided I really needed it. Our children are all teens to young adults, so I'm not worried about them accidentally getting into medication.

I also have another free standing cabinet in my kitchen, my hubby built it (as he also designed and built all of our kitchen cabinetry) and I use it for small appliances as you can see from the picture of the doors open and top sliding shelf extended... but something like that could easily be used for smaller medical equipment.

hsmeghan, our kitchen has an "appliance garage" that my husband disliked from day one. He says it has to be removed, but since remodeling the kitchen won't happen in the next 3 years, I've been using it to keep all medications, pill bottles, vitamins, etc within our reach but still out of sight. I love it!! It's not the greatest looking thing but it's so satisfying to open, get what I need, shove it all back inside and CLOSE that door and see order restored. Like you I tried baskets, bins, boxes, and no luck. Our appliance garage is 90s-looking like the rest of the kitchen, but I've seen some modern ones that I love.

Hi hsmeghan-

Whether you have the space for something in the kitchen really depends on how much stuff you need to store.

And as you say, it is an issue having unlocked storage of medication in a public area, yet, the downstairs near the kitchen is the most logical area.

So here is my question.

Is there a closet downstairs that you can convert to your medical supply area? And in that closet place a multi-shelved unit on wheels with your supplies that you can easily wheel out to the kitchen or where ever you like. You can put a lock on that closet and be sure to have extra keys!

Is there an area under the stairs that you can cut away to use for storage and in that area place locking door on a hinge, and behind that door, have a multishelved unit on wheels.

As for how to organize your medicines, there are multiple ways.

IKEA makes the Moppe wooden boxes and you can easily store three months of medications in the smaller drawers, and keep other suppliers in the larger drawers and you can label the front of the drawers.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/categories/departments/living_room/10550/

Sterilite makes a myriad of plastic storage boxes and sliding drawer units, some even free-standing ones on wheels.

http://www.sterilite.com/ProductCategory.html?id=19&ProductCategory=19&section=1

This way, all you need to do is keep your 7 day pill container in a drawer in the kitchen. and in the main medicine storage area go all the rest of your supplies along with a tray, and on the same day every week, you wheel out your cart and sit down and replenish your daily pill pack.

You can also keep in that space a posted calendar or white board on which you write the dates you need to call the pharmacy for refills, when you need to call your physician for refills, etc., and a list of all the medicine you take at which time of day.

It sounds like you need a variety of options. The appliance garage Zerayda describes is similar to my suggestion. A bread box with a roll top door that easily slides up and down. This has worked for me for small bottles and boxes. It could be placed anywhere, especially the nice wooden ones. Also, if you can get a piece of furniture, I'd suggest a small secretary desk. They are often for sale used. Ikea has them too. If you got one with drawers, each area could hold specific items. There's the top that flips open and then often 2 or three drawers.

My mother stores all her machines etc in her coffee table drawer. It works well for her to keep everything handy where she sits.

I should add, that the wooden breadbox is kept on a bookshelf in the livingroom. It's hardly noticeable.

I have autoimmune disease and take 8-10 medications daily. I found this artist on Etsy who makes beautiful wooden containers designed around pill boxes. It did so much for my morale not to have to stare at all those pill bottles on the counter every day! I'm still on the hunt for an attractive way to store syringes and such, so thanks to everyone above for some new ideas!

What about a small wood filing cabinet with a lock on it? Just google "lock wood filing cabinet" for lots of examples. I'd prefer to keep things under lock and key.

Finally getting back in here to respond (internet issues this week!). Thank you so much to everyone sharing their great ideas. I hope this helped others too.

I agree that the first thing to do is declutter the old unused medications, of which we have many.

I love the suggestions about various boxes and containers, especially the breadbox idea and the link to Ikea. We have an appliance garage that I'm still mystified as to how to use (the door on it broke right after we moved in here so it doesn't really hide anything). It kind of stores a hodgepodge of assorted stuff that changes all the time. I intend to get rid of it someday since it takes up so much counter space that could be used more effectively.

I looked at the artist on Etsy and I thought the wooden boxes were lovely (and a great idea!) but I wish they were a different shape to accommodate the shape of my box, which has compartments for 2 doses a day. (I actually also take a pill in the middle of the day.)

One problem with trying to store the daily pill organizers out of sight is that my dh tends to forget about it when he can't see it. So this isn't good.

Finally, I should mention that I don't worry too much about keeping medications under lock and key since my youngest is turning 20 in 2 weeks and I have no grandchildren or kids that visit. I will take that into consideration if that situation changes!

Thank you all again!

I don't have as much as you, but I dedicated one shelf in the kitchen cabinets near the sink to the pills.

Think about it--I spend more time in the kitchen taking pills (using the kitchen sink) than I do cooking. (OK, maybe not more total time, but more individual "visits," and also the pills are more important to my life.) So the pills DESERVE prime real estate there.

First think about where you USE these medications and equipment.
What storage do you have available there (infrastructure, I mean--shelves, cabinets, closets; I do NOT mean "what empty spaces in the infrastructure")?
Then displace the stuff that is in the space, and put the medical stuff there.?

Medical equipment and medications should not be an afterthought that's supposed to be wedged around other stuff.

Then once you've displaced that stuff, now figure out where it is best stored to be easy to use, and displace THAT stuff.

Keep going until you've run into something that can be thrown out.
I did this once in my house, and I had something like 15 steps and traveled through 2 rooms before I got to the piece of clutter that could go away.

But it meant that stuff was where I needed it.

In the 3 years since I started this thread I've begun taking medications that are stored in the fridge. Honestly, when a doctor suggests a new medication, my very first thought is, I have nowhere to store another one and my weekly pillbox can't contain any more either! But I guess I'm healthy enough and I suppose that's what really matters.

Then in 2019 my new endocrinologist offered me a prescription for a free farm share -- really! So now my fridge is full of veggies too most of the time that could be considered medication I suppose. Funded through grants by Cooperative Extension -- he is doing this as research to see if it helps diabetics lower their A1Cs and hoping someday that farm shares will be funded by Medicaid or Medicare. Hope it works out! I've been paying for the farm share for the last 2 years. Hasn't lowered my A1C but it did my husband's and we love eating fresh organic local veggies and fruits. Highly recommend this to anyone who hasn't tried it, if it's available in your area.

Thread was bumped by "Nicola Abraham", who is a well-known necrospammer. Here is some of their previous work. Please flag spam when you see it. https://www.houzz.com/pro/moonicat/nicola-abraham

"Nicola", who claims to be an architect pro but works as a nurse, is actually a spammer. Please flag the spam post. Thanks.

Sterilite makes a myriad of plastic storage boxes and sliding drawer units, some even free-standing ones on wheels.

We have a series of small boxes (not Sterilite, but similar) in our bathroom linen closet -- they're all labeled, and it's easy to find what we need. I chose the boxes specifically because they fit well on our shelves and because they're tall enough to hold bottles of Nyquil, etc.

Our categories:

- My medicines, which includes vitamins

- My husband's medicines

- Pain relief -- Tylenol, Icy Hot, etc.

- First aid -- bandaids, neosporin, ace bandages

- Cold medicines -- this one's kinda crowded; wish I'd bought one larger box -- also includes thermometer

- Humidifier accessories

- Travel -- contains a travel first aid kit that I pack for trips and a handful of tiny ziplock baggies in which we can pack meds, if we wish

- Pet medicines -- Heartworm pills, etc.

These boxes keep things well organized, and they're also safe from humidity and other enemies.

This way, all you need to do is keep your 7 day pill container in a drawer in the kitchen.

I take my box (mentioned above) out once a month and decant my medicines and vitamins into four 7-day containers, which I keep in a kitchen drawer. This is where I tend to take them and where I have a glass of water.

First think about where you USE these medications and equipment.

This makes perfect sense.

I bought one of those metallic Ikea drawers In the office section of Ikea for all my nebulizer stuff etc. they are so cheap you could buy two even. I put the nebulizer on top and in the three drawers input the meds and solutions etc. for the machine. Everything is in one place, place it next to a comfortable chair. You could put another next to it for all the bp gauges etc. too or what I did was use a three tier book shelf and bought 9 weaved baskets, and within each placed all the bp gauges, spacers, inhalers etc. so they were discreetly all in one place. On top I put decorative elements.