February 5, 2013

Kitchen Month – My Spice Storage + FREE Spice Inventory Printable

Yesterday I talked about spice storage – I gave you a few ideas and challenged you to do a couple things to clean up your spice storage. Today I’m going to show you how I overhauled my spice storage. I switched two cabinets around and I’m so happy that I did because it really makes a difference with the efficiency in my kitchen. Here’s a before pic showing how I had my spices stored before (yes it’s organized, but it didn’t work the way I’d hope it would).

So I cleared out both of my cabinets – the corner cabinet and the one to the right (where I was keeping vitamins, tea, and some miscellaneous baking supplies)

and then I proceeded to switch the items around until it made sense for me – then I evaluated what I would need. I found  two large (14 inch) clear lazy susans for the corner cabinet, (two smaller 11 and 12 inch) clear lazy susans for the spice cabinet and two tiered spice storage holders.

First up, I rearranged the corner cabinet, moved some of the shelves up  to accomodate the lazy susans. This is a great solution for us – meds and vitamins are easily accessible, tea and cocoa is right to the right of the mug cabinet, bulk spices are out of the way but still accessible, and my canning jars are at the ready but not in the way.

Once this cabinet was under control, I took on the spice cabinet.

I considered all of my/our cooking and baking needs and annoyances and figured out a way to get the space workable. First of all, I needed to be able to see everything. Secondly, quick access to the spices was key. I was getting tired of hopping on the counter or a stool to find the celery salt. And I wanted it to look clean and organized.

The Method?

Sort by baking and cooking – alphabetize and put away. I also separated my cooking herbs out by blends and plain herbs/spices to make it even easier to find the garlic salt.

Here’s a photo run-down on specifics:

What’s the best part? How easy it is to find everything – isn’t that the point of organizing? Finding a system that works!

A couple highlights?

I use canning jars for storing everything from baking soda to cupcake liners  (this idea came from Mel at Mel’s Kitchen Cafe) – we bake a lot of muffins to it’s a pretty solution for storing those liners.

Did you spot that spice inventory on the door? I printed it on cardstock, cut it out, and laminated it. Then I simply  attached it to the door with removable adhesive strips. Now when I am running low on a spice I  just put a little check mark in the gray box. Then when I order my spices I just check the inventory and I know exactly what I need. It’s a great spice system!

I thought you might like a little spice inventory too to help with your quest for an organized spice cabinet/drawer/wall –  here’s a little freebie just for you!

So tell me? Does your spice cabinet need a little revamp? What’s your plan to make your spice cabinet work for you?

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in the kitchen, Kitchen Month