A Spicy Situation

My husband and I both love our spices, but let’s be real—80% of them are his. He’s all about trying new flavor blends for various meats, while I prefer my spices plain and simple so I can control them better. Well, unless we’re talking about Indian food—Garam Masala gets a pass.

But the other day, I’d had enough. Picture me rummaging through the spice chaos, hunting for my basic go-to seasonings and coming up empty-handed. Me being short doesn’t help—I can barely reach most of the shelf, let alone see what’s there! My method quickly devolved into blindly grabbing whatever my fingertips could reach.

And then it hit me: necessity really is the mother of invention. It was time to tame the spice beast.

Now, I’m not a spice hoarder. I go through them regularly and toss the expired ones (even though my husband thinks “best by” dates are a corporate conspiracy). But I needed a proper storage solution for all the ones we kept—something functional and pretty. Sure, I could’ve bought one of those fancy spice organizers, but I wanted to DIY this project on the cheap.

Enter my crafty friend, Toni, with a genius tip: some hardware stores have bins in the back of the store filled with scrap wood from pallets or frames that they’re just throwing away. Free wood?! Say no more! A few weeks back, I’d gotten the OK from a store employee to take some free scraps home, and voilà—I finally had a project for them.

See the accompanying video here https://youtu.be/fM8aiAnstA4

I measured the cabinet space, cut the wood into smaller pieces, and painted them in fun colors (because everything is better with color). Using L brackets, https://amzn.to/4jxEzn6 I installed the pieces in a stair-step arrangement so the spices would actually display. The bottom shelf has extra scrap pieces behind it to keep it stable and prevent the board from sliding under.  Now, when someone inevitably spills spices everywhere, we can easily pull out the bottom board and clean up.

And guess what? It’s perfect. No more playing hide-and-seek with spices.  No more accidental paprika-toast disasters in the mornings (I thought I grabbed the cinnamon). For now, peace reigns in the spice cabinet.