31 Days of Pinterest Projects - Day 3 - Let's Spice it Up!

We're headed back in the kitchen for another small tweak today. One thing that I'm learning after moving last November is that although you may find THE PERFECT organizational solution for something in one home, it may just not translate well to your next home. And it may actually take lots of time and trial and error to find another fabulous solution.

For example, our spices. I had the perfect situation worked out in Indiana in our old home - I bought this three tiered organizer {which I had seen on Pinterest} at Target.

But once we moved into this home, that organizer was too tall since the cabinet I wanted to use had two shelves inside instead of just one. So, I scratched my head for a few days and decided on moving the spices to a drawer since our new kitchen happens to have a huge number of drawers in it. This solution worked for a while. But then our son grew. And he could reach in and grab the spice jars at will and spill things all over the kitchen floor. Not so fun! Plus, my makeshift dividers (cardboard boxes cut up and not even attached to the sides of the drawer) weren't really working either.

So, I decided to try the spices on the tiered organizer from our former home, in another upper cabinet with more vertical clearance. That turned out to be inconvenient since it was too far from the stove and I felt that cabinet would be much better used for canned goods, on the tiered organizer (woohoo for finding a use for it since it no longer worked for spices).

Also, as you can imagine, all this shifting and moving stuff around caused a great deal of frustration as I would scurry around and around trying to quickly prepare dinner for our family but not being able to remember where I was currently keeping the spices!!

So finally after about 10 months of living here, we were out at Bed Bath & Beyond just looking around and I happened to find this organizational dream product for just $24.99. (It's also available at Sur La Table for $24.95, just click here to purchase one.)

I stopped in my tracks and told Dave we simply had to have it. It was the perfect size to fit on the shelf in the cabinet to the right of the stove, where I'd originally planned to keep the spices. And by some small miracle, it holds exactly 18 spice jars - precisely the number that I own.

It came with its own little labels that I popped on in alphabetical order (it's a sickness, I tell ya!).

Just for kicks, this is what that messy cabinet looked like before.

And just 10 minutes later, here it is:

Spices in the rack on the lower right, salts and peppers to the left of that, sugars and baking soda above that, and chocolate nuts and other baking supplies above that with popcorn behind it. I added some cute brown paper Martha Stewart labels I'd gotten at Staples. Isn't it amazing what 10 minutes and $25 can do to your efficiency in the kitchen? I have no trouble finding anything now! Baking is a breeze. I have been elated with this solution ever since and I've had no trouble keeping it looking just like this.

It just goes to show that if something isn't working out well, you don't have to settle for chaos and inefficiency; you just have to be persistent until you find the right solution.