I've Conquered My Nemesis!

For years, the most painful part of of cooking has been getting spices in and out of my cupboard.  The cupboard that holds my spices is up high (middle shelf of the picture below), so I have to pull half the jars out of my cupboard to find the right spice.

I have (on more than one occasion) had a glass spice jar fall out of the cupboard onto the counter and shatter just because it is so stinkin' hard to find what I'm looking for.  I have HATED my spice storage!

Knowing that we are building a house, I've been searching and searching for the best spice storage solution.  And I found it at the Container Store - The Acrylic 20-Bottle Spice Rack.  When my in-laws took a trip to California in September (wish we had a Container Store here in Boise!), I had them pick me up a couple of these spice racks... which I've been storing in my garage ever since.  I knew they would be perfect sitting on a shelf in my beautiful, giant, walk-in pantry in our new home, and every time I cook, I have wished we were in our new home so my spices would be organized and easy to get to.  As I've started thinking about packing up our house (what a daunting task!) I decided that it didn't make sense to move a bunch of spice bottles when I was just going to get rid of them in our new home.  We decided we could just leave the new spice racks on our kitchen counter for a couple months until we move.  Hooray for me!  That meant I had a small project this afternoon, and I smiled the entire time :-)

• I first pulled all the spices out of the cupboard... over 30 jars!

• Using the handy dandy spice funnel (that I also got from the Container Store), I transferred spices from my old jars/containers to my new jars, and labeled them using the stickers that came with my new jars.

• I put them in alphabetical order to make them easy to find.  I even have a few empty bottles in case I want to add additional spices to my collection.  Any suggestions???

• Ahhh, what a thing of beauty.  These racks are awesome.  They have little rubber feet on the bottom so they won't skid on my shelf or counter, or you could choose to mount them to the wall (they have small holes in the back and came with hardware if you choose to do this).  I can picture these puppies in my new pantry as I type this, but for now, I will smile knowing I have conquered my kitchen nemesis!