Lock away the dangers! (Ikea Atran Lockable Cabinet)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	Ikea Atran Lockable Cabinet
Date:	24/02/09 (141 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Keeps children and animals safe from medications, looks great, smooth lock

Disadvantages: -----------

I bought the Ätran Lockable Medicine Cabinet from Ikea during a recent shopping trip, basically because due to various long term ailments I have lots of high strength drugs in my bungalow. While my older granddaughters' are old enough not to touch my tablets, when their baby sister came along I was concerned as she is a naturally very inquisitive child and everything seems to end up in her mouth as with most babies. I was always very aware of the fact that with no stairs in my home there was nowhere I could 100% confidently store my medication, when the older girls' were small I lived in a house so any tablets were kept upstairs where they were banned thanks to an excellent stair gate.

I've never seen lockable medicine cabinets before other than those you see in the doctor's surgery, and indeed this one does look very reminiscent of a doctor's cabinet especially as I chose the crisp looking white one as opposed to the trendier brushed steel cabinet. It looks fantastic on the wall in my bathroom and eventually I plan to stencil the front with a dolphin design to match the decor in my bathroom, in fact you could completely personalise this cabinet as it's pristine white on all sides and would lend itself well as a blank canvas I think.

My son in law fixed it to the wall using no more than four small screws, a spirit level and screwdriver and this took him around five minutes. It didn't look fiddly in the slightest and there was no swearing coming from the bathroom so it must have been an easy enough job! He tells me the unit can be flipped over before mounting on the wall so that the door will open on the other side, the layout of my bathroom dictated that the hinge needed to be on the left for me but it's a good idea that the door could be opened the other way as layouts from house to house vary.

The inside of the cabinet is well laid out, there are four fixed shelves which all have a slightly raised edge meaning nothing can slide off and it also means that when rummaging through the cabinet I don't have to worry so much about knocking something off onto the floor. This isn't a safety measure, it just means my poor old bones don't have to go to the effort of bending to retrieve a tub of Vicks that has rolled under the sink! There is also a space in the door to store small jars and bottle, much the same as you find a fridge. I find this good for short items but when I tried to store a tall thin jar of olive oil in there I found it looked very wobbly and overbalanced when I moved to close the door. There's room in the cabinet to fit plenty, more space than the average person would need to store any medication. I can say that as my cabinet at present is holding at least 25 prescribed tablet and medicine bottles and there is still room for basic first aid supplies. You could also use the top of the cabinet itself to store bandages and things like that, anything really which isn't going to harm a child or animal if they were to get hold of it - my daughter is thinking of getting one of these to stash her Lush stuff in as she's tired of my granddaughters' getting hold of it, she'd guard the key with her life!

Talking of keys, you get two with the cabinet. One I keep in the lock at the moment as my granddaughter isn't yet able to climb on anything to reach the cabinet, but the other is on my keyring with my house keys so I don't lose it and also so it's within easy reach should I need something out of the cabinet quickly. Once my granddaughter is climbing even more than she does now I shall remove the key from the cabinet and keep it in a safer place. The key turns smoothly both when it comes to locking and unlocking the cabinet, you don't need to apply very much pressure although it's a strong lock and once locked will stay like that. I say this as I once had a lockable cupboard in the kitchen when my daughters' were small, I'd keep my cleaning fluids and bleach in this cupboard until one day I discovered a quick thump on the top was all it took for the lock to release!

The cabinet I chose is 35cm wide and 70cm high, although you can opt for the smaller 35 x 45cm one which looks even more like a doctor's cabinet than mine does! I think this is the perfect size and being made of steel it's not too heavy for my rather flimsy interior walls, all in all a wonderful medicine cabinet which is so much more secure than those mirrored ones which attract children because of the mirror - and once they're attracted what do they do? Move to open the door of course, with possible lethal consequences. I cannot praise this highly enough, if you have young children buy one today and you'll have done everything possible to avoid a tragic accident and at only £15 from Ikea this is definitely money well spent in my opinion.

Summary: Every home should have one!