Pimp my Kitchen

[Daddy-A]

Am I the only one more than just a little freaked out about seeing a 1000W+ microwave oven installed over a sink? Sorry snowangel, but the designer in me is seeing a disaster waiting to happen ... potentially fatal.

I got rid of a few unecessary items and made a new spice cabinet. Inside the cabinet, I put an expandable step shelf, which is hidden under all the spices:

My favorite, and simplest accessorie. Dollar for dollar the "spice stairs" do more for a kitchen than any other accessorie.

A.

[jerkhouse]

Somebody likes Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning!

[snowangel]

I must admit that while most of the time I love my much tinier kitchen, I hate this cupboard.

I absolutely hated that step spice unit. I don't buy a specific brand of empty jar, but get my spices in quantities I want from Penzey's or Holy Land or the co-op and jar them as appropriate, using stuff like old spice jars and baby food jars, etc. But, what I hated was that stuff was stuffed behind other stuff, and there was so much wasted space. I wondered what to do. I thought about those spice racks that affix to the cupboard doors, but all of the were expensive and had three shelves on them, and their idea of three shelves didn't match up with the placement that I wanted.

So, the other night, I was killing time while Diana had a volleyball practice and stopped at my local Ace Hardware. Low and behold, they had individual door-mounted racks for $1.99 each.

Yes, it looks much better. I know that I would be happier with square canisters, but my grandmother (now deceased) gave these to me as a wedding present. ANd, yes, I did toss a bunch of stuff. I actually had an old McCormick's tin (just about empty) of cream of tartar that had a PRICE STICKER on it. $.10. And, three bags of raisins (which I hate) which each had four raisins in them.

I'm happy. I will no longer have a tumbling mass of stuff when I try and grab one spice. Nor will I have to re-pack this cupboard like I was packing for a hike for two months every time I want to grab something.

It took us all of 1/2 hour to get the racks in (best gift ever was the Ryobi cordless drill with the level built in and the magnetic thingie for the screws) and another 1/2 hour do get things right.

[Mallet]

This seems like an affordable (and expandable!) storage solution..

[ChefCrash]

[azureus]

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Nice idea, ChefCrash. It looks great and matches your cabinets. Did you build it? What keeps the shelf in place when it is closed? Friction between the screw and the wood? I'd like to adapt this to hold large, over-sized cookbooks.

April

[fifi]

Susan, those little wire shelves are terrific. I like the idea that they are bought individually so that you can mount each shelf at the desired height. In my previous pantry, on the wall, I put those multiple racks. I had to look all over the place for a rack that had at least one shelf with enough head space to hold some vinegar bottles and tall Tones spice containers from Sam's.