spice rack organization

Spice rack organization has been something I’ve struggled with for years. Not that I didn’t have organization, just that I didn’t like the way it was organized.

When the husband and I were first married we received a spinning spice rack for our wedding. And we loved it. It kept everything in one place. But it quickly lost it’s appeal do to space. There was no room to add more spices. It took up valuable counter space in our little aparments. A lot of spice bottles were too tall for it anyway. And a lot of the spices that were on it, honestly, I did not use. I can say that some of them I NEVER used. And yet I kept it, cause spinning & pretty! So the rest of the spices we bought ended up… somewhere.

This is close to what we had, it’s a pre-filled spinning spice rack. I like to buy the spices as I go, so I now only have what I use.

But when we moved into our house we put the spices up over the microwave, which is above the stove. Did I mention that I am 5’5. Not short, but not tall by any means either. Seeing beyond a first row was impossible. So I bought a little 3 tiered shelf rack that fit perfectly in the space. I could now see the labels, but then I REALLY couldn’t reach them. Plus, it wasn’t nearly big enough for the amount of spices I had acquired.

But I think this little shelf rack would be a great option for those who have a cupboard shelf that is low enough. And if you have minimal spices or enough room to fit more than one. This spice rack organization option is also inexpensive, which is a total bonus. I actually do still use this rack, only now it holds my tea.

Flash forward to last year and I found a solution that worked perfectly for us. The most amazing door rack. Technically, you can also screw it into a wall.

It has room for all of our spices. Plus plenty of extra shelves for overflow to my little pantry. This rack can be either be hung over the door, which we had for a while, but it would bang every time you opened and closed the door. So we screwed it in and haven’t looked back since. There’s enough space to close the door still! People, it’s the little things that make this lady happy.

They also have this smaller version if you don’t have a large door to put it on. These would fit right onto a cupboard door or a little patch of wall.

While I’m here, I’ve been seeing a lot of people using drawer organizers for their spice rack organization. I have not tried this out as I have a total of THREE drawers in my entire kitchen. Which is probably my only complaint space wise. But for those of you with ALL THE DRAWERS people love these little guys.

This plastic one from amazon has great reviews! And this bamboo drawer organizer is super cute! And this flat one , the most basic of them all. All under $15 on Amazon.

They are at a great height and I can you can see all of them clearly. I think the downside of these would be the amount of spices you could fit, or the height of the spice bottles. The latter could be fixed with a solution that I used on my own spice rack. Segway!

Too cheesy? You’re probably right. But we’ll continue on anyway.

Remember that spinning spice rack from earlier? Well I kept it on my counter until this past year when I got my door spice rack. But did I get rid of those spices? No! I wasn’t done NOT using them yet! Never mind how OLD they were. And part of me is now glad I didn’t. I think what kept me hanging on was how cute the little glass jars were. So I did what was unthinkable for nearly 10 years. I dumped out all the spices!

What I was left with was cute little jars. I spent a day cleaning them, removing the labels, which was a process of it’s own. I soaked them, took off the top layer of label, soaked them again, rubbed off the paper and finally removed the sticky residue with Goo Gone and a rag. All worth it when I had clean and shiny jars to fill.

I moved all of my smaller basic spices that were in their not so pretty store bottles and put them into my jars. And oh the pretty colors! With my larger spices, like garlic and onion powder, I just removed the label from their plastic bottle. We’ve been buying our super basic spices at Aldi lately. Their labels come off super easy and they had a plain black lid that matched the black lids on my smaller glass bottles. It was perfect.

Can you guess what I did next? I labeled the heck out of everything! The plain jars + the old school labels from my dymo manual label maker are heaven. I am so pleased with how these turned out.

The internet is here for you. And so am I. You can buy glass spice jars for your spice rack organization on Amazon. These come with labels already if you don’t have a label maker. You can also personalize it to your own decor with a little bit of spray paint on the lids. Personally, I’m all about gold lately and would go that way. But black will take through years to come and will match a lot of the store bought bottles.

I also set up a Pinterest account where I will pin items and ideas related to blog posts. All the links in this post, and my other pantry organizing post , can be found there in the Pantry Organization board. Or you can click on that Pinterest icon over there on the side for.

So have you all cleaned out your spice rack lately? Could it use a spice rack organization intervention? What are you favorite spice racks or tips?

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