Kitchen Chaos Continued: The Spices

This has been a crazy day.  I usually blog in the mornings, but today I couldn't because of appointments, phone calls, and everything else that is in my job description as a work at home mom.  Anyhoo, I still got the opportunity (after the kids were all tucked into bed) to organize something.

I've been meaning to reorganize my spices ever since I first moved into my house over 5 years ago...life has gotten in the way.  This also means, however, that I keep impulsively buying things to help organize those spices.

My biggest problem is my lack of uniformity in size and shape of spice containers.  In a perfect world, I would just go out and buy all new containers to put all the spices in so that they are all the same and well labeled. 

This is not a perfect world.

I am still sticking to my rule that I use only what I have and don't go out and buy anything.  Okay, so maybe I have a lot of containers on hand, mostly from my Clever Container business but also because they are my impulse buys far too often.

All that being said, this is what my spice "cabinet" looked like before I began.

Crazy, right?  I can't find anything in that mess.

So, first things first, I took out everything.  I scrubbed until I couldn't scrub anymore.  I went through all the spices and got rid of anything that was icky, too old, unlabeled, or just something I'll never use again because nobody liked it.  I put everything that has a home somewhere else in it's home. 

There was still a lot of stuff there.  There were a few items that I had duplicates of because, no doubt, I couldn't find it when I was looking for it one time and assumed that I didn't have any.

This is a pretty deep shelf.  Normally in a deep shelf I just put the stuff into bins so I don't lose anything.  The problem with that this time is that I want to see the label of every item and be able to just reach in and get it without looking forever. 

Also, my deep shelf has little side shelves that are angled in the back (basically a triangle because the whole thing is at an angle in my house).  I decided that I would put bins on the side if I could get something that fit to put in all the stuff that I don't use much.

All of the little things I have purchased in an effort to fix my spice space now come out to play.  I sort and figure out what fits in each organizer and where I want to put the organizer based on what will fit in it.  I'll want to put spices together that go in different dishes that I cook.  I ended up giving up on that in some cases because things just didn't fit together, but it worked out pretty well overall.

The end result looks a lot nicer.  I can actually see what is in each spice.  I also ended up with a little bin pull on the bottom right to hold all my spice packets that don't have a jar.  I also put all of the cake decorating stuff that I only use when it's time for birthday cakes or cookies in a Cabinet Cubby from Clever Container.  It helps to only have to pull that thing out when that time rolls around.  That went on the little side shelf as well.  I gave up on my rotating spice rack because it used up a lot of space for holding very little.

Overall I think it works nicely.  The thing I'm a little worried about is the fact that there is a lot of space that isn't used in front of my spices.  People (meaning my husband and I) have a tendency to set random things on spaces that empty.  Originally this shelf was designed for a microwave, but my microwave doesn't fit there, so we put it on a shelf below.  This place ended up being the only spot in my kitchen appropriate for spices.  It's nice that it's right next to the stove for easy access while seasoning things. 

One day I will completely renovate my kitchen and this organization will all be obsolete, but for now, this is good for me.  What do you think?