The Ultimate Spice Rack

For the past two months, my seasoning options have been limited for those few times that I actually did some cooking. As my sweetie kids about his mother's cooking, I used both spices - salt and pepper. It wasn't as grim as all that, though, since the herb garden survived the move quite well. As needed, I could harvest hot little peppers, basil, dill, marjoram, mint, oregano, savory, and/or thyme.

However, I missed my spices. As long-time readers might remember, I have a wide variety of herbs and spices, many in jars I have been refilling since my college days. The limited cabinet space in this house left me no room for the spice collection; it usually takes an entire cabinet shelf to line them up in alphabetical rows. I've looked for spice racks in the past, and did so again over the past month, but they generally hold only 14-20 jars. Um, that ain't gonna cut it, not with my 80+ containers.

I began visualizing what I would need my sweetie to build for me. Something big with just the right size shelves, lots of shelves. Maybe it could fit along the wall behind the counter between the lower and upper cabinets next to the refrigerator. That would get it away from the heat and moisture near the oven and stove, two of three things that are bad for spice and herb quality. Light also degrades them, but not quite as quickly as the first two. Perhaps my sweetie could make little cabinet doors to go in front of them, even though that would mean having to keep that counter cleared off all the time. Hm.

Dream on, Chile! With so many projects and so little time, this one was not a high priority. It had never even gotten past the dreaming stage to actual design.

Last weekend, we stopped by a yard sale in our neighborhood. The guy had some great stuff. My sweetie spent quite a while checking out the tools which, surprisingly, included a number of hand drills. We have several already, but there was a nice little one for tight spaces that my sweetie was happy to pick up. I walked around the tables and saw .... it.

The Ultimate Spice Rack.
That may not have been why it was built or how the gentleman used it, but, for me, it looked like it would be perfect. Let me describe this baby for you. It has 5 shelves. Each shelf stretches 31" wide, is 3 1/4" deep, and has 6 1/4" space above it.

Oh my God, I could, like, fit ALL my jars on that thing!

I took it home and promptly discovered there was not a single location in the kitchen where it would fit. This sucker is huge. I looked around the laundry room and pondered. Yes, it could fit, but I'd have to wait until after the chest freezer delivery to determine its ultimate location. Finally, today, I got my sweetie to put it up, securely screwed into the studs in the wall.

Every last one of my herbs and spices fit on this rack. There was no room for the extracts but I had room in the cabinet for those. There was just enough space in the bottom corner for a container of seasonings leftover from packages and restaurants. The room is fairly dark but if I decide the spice rack should be covered, I can put a small curtain rod above it and sew a custom curtain to hang down over it.


Impressed? Oh. You want to see it?

Okay, here it is. Click on the photo if you want to enlarge it and peruse my spice collection (or just go back to this post and read the list.)