Make it Monday: Pantry Spice Drawers

Storing herbs and spices is tricky. They require darkness to maintain their potency, so dusty, counter-top spice racks are out. They're small, so tall cupboard space would be inefficient. A drawer would be a better idea, but all my drawers are filled with essential tools and linens. That leaves the pantry, but I hate to take up valuable real-estate with small, random sized bottles that are easily disorganized.

So, one day I had a brainstorm. I have an ordinary 5 foot wide pantry with bi-fold doors. The white painted shelves are sturdy, but made of inexpensive particle board. My brainstorm combined with hubby's mad carpentry skills converted scrap particle board from our garage into spice drawers built under the bottom shelves of the pantry.

I re-bottled all of my herbs and spices into half-pint canning jars so they would be easily organized. I labeled their tops and put them all in alphabetical order. My collection is quite complete, but there is room for more.

When gathering ingredients from the pantry, I can easily get the herbs and spices I need at the same time.

This project has solved the long standing problem of spice storage in my kitchen. Maybe it will provide inspiration for your kitchen storage problems too.