Bathroom cabinet: one bin per person, one shared, no medicine

Give every person in the household one container of their own, keep exactly one shared container, and move all medicine out of the bathroom. That is the layout. Our default is a 7 x 4 7/8 x 2 1/2 in (17.8 x 12.4 x 6.4 cm) tray per person in the top drawer for daily items, one larger bin under the sink for shared backstock, and a dresser drawer or linen-closet shelf in another room for anything whose label says to keep it dry. The bathroom cabinet then holds only what is used in the bathroom, every day, by a named person.

Medicine leaves the bathroom before anything else moves

The FDA is direct about this: for most medicines, it is better to store them in a cool, dry place such as a dresser drawer, storage box, closet shelf, or kitchen cabinet, and improper storage such as a damp bathroom cabinet can contribute to decreased effectiveness. A shower running for ten minutes twice a day is exactly the condition that cabinet sits in. The same page notes that medicine kept in a kitchen cabinet belongs away from hot appliances and the sink, for the same reason.

So the first pass is a sort, not a purchase. Pull every bottle, tube, and blister pack out of the cabinet and into a shoebox. That box goes to a bedroom dresser drawer or a closet shelf. Anything expired comes out now, because the FDA's disposal guidance gives you a clear route: drop it at a drug take-back location or mail it in a prepaid drug mail-back envelope. If neither is available and the drug is not on the FDA flush list, mix it with used coffee grounds, dirt, or cat litter, seal it in a bag or empty can, put that in the household trash, and scratch out your personal information on the empty packaging.

Removing medicine usually frees an entire shelf. That shelf is what makes the rest of this layout possible without buying a second cabinet.

One tray per person, sized to the shelf you actually have

Personal items are the ones that cause arguments: combs, hair clips, razors, contact lens cases, a specific deodorant. Give each person one container and stop there. When their container is full, they edit their own container. Nobody negotiates about someone else's comb.

For a standard vanity drawer, a set of three Sterilite Medium Storage Trays works well: each tray is 7 x 4 7/8 x 2 1/2 in (17.8 x 12.4 x 6.4 cm), so three of them sit side by side across a 22-inch drawer with room left over, and the 2 1/2 in height clears most drawer fronts. For a deeper drawer or an open shelf, the IKEA SKUBB box, set of 3 measures 7 3/4 x 15 x 4 3/4 in (19.7 x 38.1 x 12.1 cm) and costs $7.99 for the set, which is one box per person for a three-person household at under three dollars a head.

Use fabric boxes when the shelf is deep and you have to pull a container forward to see into it. Use rigid trays when the drawer is shallow and you want to read everything from above without lifting anything. Measure the clear opening first, not the drawer front; the guidance in measure for a drawer organizer before buying covers the runners and drawer-front overhang that make a tray "almost fit."

What the shared container is allowed to hold

One shared container, and it holds only these four things: cotton swabs, spare washcloths, tissue, and first-aid basics. Everything else is somebody's.

Backstock is a separate problem and belongs under the sink, not on a shelf at eye level. A Sterilite Wide 3 Drawer Unit is 14 5/8 x 14 1/2 x 10 5/8 in (37.1 x 36.8 x 27.0 cm) on the outside, with each drawer measuring 13 1/8 x 12 5/8 x 2 1/2 in inside. Two of those units fit side by side in most 30-inch vanities, and the drawers slide out past the plumbing trap in a way that a deep open bin does not. Assign one drawer to paper goods, one to refills, one to cleaning supplies for that room. Keeping a running count of what is in there is easier if you already keep a household replenishment list.

A worked layout, and the labels that go on it

Here is how the three container types divide up, as an example, in a bathroom with a 30-inch vanity, one drawer, and a two-shelf mirrored cabinet.

Scroll sideways to see the full table →

The upper shelf stays empty on purpose. It absorbs the guest toothbrush, the new sunscreen, the thing nobody has decided about yet, without pushing anything out of a named container.

Each of those containers still needs a name on it. A label reading "toiletries" does not help anyone find a hair tie. Labels that name a person ("Dana") or a moment ("morning") get used. Labels that name a category get ignored. If two people in the house search differently, that is worth settling before you print anything, and choose closet labels that match how you search walks through the trade-off.

Your own cabinet gets the same treatment tonight. Set the shoebox on the counter. Empty the cabinet of medicine into it, then put the shoebox in a bedroom drawer before anything else happens. Next, hand every adult an empty tray and give them five minutes to fill it with what they touch daily; whatever is left on the counter after that is either shared or leaving. Measure the drawer's clear opening and write the number on your phone before you order trays, because a 7-inch tray in a 6 3/4-inch opening is a returned package. Finally, put a reminder on the calendar for six months out to check expiration dates in the shoebox, which is the one part of this system that goes stale on its own.

Sources and references

• Don't Be Tempted to Use Expired MedicinesAccessed 2026-09-16
• Where and How to Dispose of Unused MedicinesAccessed 2026-09-16
• Sterilite 1355 - Set (3) Medium Storage TraysAccessed 2026-09-16
• SKUBB box, set of 3, white - IKEAAccessed 2026-09-16
• Wide 3 Drawer Unit - SteriliteAccessed 2026-09-16