I was a little surprised that two of the four comments mentioned the spice cabinet solution as something they would like to hear about. I'm actually quite proud of it myself, although I figured most readers would probably be underwhelmed. Perhaps I was mistaken.
So, without further ado, here is my new spice cabinet, costing absolutely nothing:
(I can't take credit for the idea, but I don't remember where I read it. I have a sneaking suspicion it was Real Simple Magazine, but my apologies to anyone I inadvertently ripped off.)
So, as you can see, my new spice cabinet is something just about everyone already has in their kitchen. All of the spices are now labeled on the lid and stored alphabetically in a deep kitchen drawer for easy access.
While organizing, I discovered that because our spice shelf was in such disarray, we had three containers of paprika and didn't even know it.
The hardest part of this fairly easy project was clearing out a deep kitchen drawer. I only have two drawers in my kitchen deep enough to house spice containers, so I had to make some choices. Formerly, the drawers contained kitchen linens and cook books. The kitchen linens needed a drawer more than the cook books, so I moved the cook books. They now live very happily on a high cabinet shelf. The shelf is an ideal spot for the books because we can reach the front of the shelf to pull books down, but before, we could never reach the items at the back of the shelf without standing on a chair. The books take up the whole front-to-back shelf space, which is much more effective and efficient than the previous supply-hiding that was going on back there.
If you're ready to start this project, you won't need much, but I do recommend getting a good medium point permanent black marker and a super-spiffy silver permanent marker. Silver permanent markers show up on dark surfaces (like black spice lids) and are widely available. I use mine all the time. So go ahead and get started!
Oh, and what's the best thing about my new spice cabinet? It inspired me to re-organize the rest of my kitchen cabinets, giving me plenty more pantry space in my pantry-less kitchen! Yay!
Posts
5 comments:
Brilliant! I don't know if we have any deep drawers in my kitchen. But I imagine the same principle would work with a (tall enough) Rubbermaid type drawer placed in a cabinet. I can definitely swing that.
brilliant! I, too, am a fan of my silver permanent marker. We unfortunately used it up during our sheetrocking project in the hallway (it marks green-board really well!), so I have to get myself a new one.
Till then, enjoy your spice drawer!
I used my silver marker to write FOUST on all my DVD cases. :)
I like your idea, but my spice rack is just so darn cute that I think I'll have to keep using it. It also only allows for one row of jars per shelf, so there's no spice-jar-hiding going on.
Yeah, the spice drawer is pretty much for people who don't have a spice rack, for whatever reason. :) The drawer is a good alternative to putting them on a cabinet shelf, but the rack undoubtedly works just as well or better.
So I took your idea and am going to apply it to my medicine drawer as well. I've got no medicine cabinet but I've got plenty of medicine, so it's all going in a drawer in my vanity in the bedroom. Yay Sharpies! (And the black sharpies came with a tiny orange sharpie I can give my sister!)
Post a Comment