The Wall of Spices

If you've followed my blog for a while, you've witnessed my periodic overhaul of my spice cabinet.  The main problem is that I have a wide variety of herbs and spices, which seems to increase every time I discover a new cuisine.

This shot is me looking up at the cupboard.  I'm really that short.  I can only reach the bottom shelf without a step stool.  The top shelf is step ladder territory, which is why I've stopped keeping anything on the top shelves in the kitchen.  It's also a de-hoarding thing.  Even with the jars as close to the front as possible, and all the chai-related spices and some extracts on top of the oven, I was often knocking them over, sometimes into whatever I was cooking.  It's amazing none of them broke.

I saw a YouTube video of someone who built a rack on a wall to keep his spices.  I loved the idea, but didn't feel like building a rack.  Instead, I found an over-the-door rack at Target with edged shelves that was intended for pantry use.  I built it and put it up in less than an hour.  It looked great.

Then I went to close the door, and realized my pantry door is fitted too well to do an over-the-door mount. Plus, it really should have been supported by additional screws and not earthquake putty.  I didn't want to put holes in the door.

That bit of wall to the left of the pantry was wide enough for the shelves and deep enough not to run into the baskets.  It didn't have the height clearance for all of the baskets, but I could squeeze 7 of 8 onto the rails.  I asked Neighbor Smurf to bring his drill and a level, so we could use the wall-mount hardware option.

Now my spices are organized by type and/or use.  All the things you would normally use for baking are on one shelf, broths and pickles on another, herbs are together, etc.  The bottom basket is backups, and I changed the spice box in the pantry into one for cookie/granola mix-ins.

Since it's a bit of a walk from the wall to the stove, I picked up little rubber organizers.  I can put all the items I need in one and take them to the stove at the same time.  They live on the top shelf.

The major change I made from the original plan was where to put the extracts.  They should always be stored away from light, so they ended up in the old spice cabinet.  That makes sense anyway, since they're usually the last thing added to a recipe.  Store-bought are in one pull out basket, small homemade are in another, and the large vanilla bottles get their own row.

One thing I did not change was keeping the spice inventory inside the cabinet door.  Even with all the jars out in the open, I don't want to take the chance of missing an item and buying it prematurely.  That's partly how I got into this mess in the first place.