Week of Kitchen Renovations: Spice Rack
The spice rack that we have serves both function and fashion. Most people who walk in notice it immediately and compliment it. I love that our spices are always at an arm’s reach and that the shelf and spices provide a splash of color in the kitchen. Sometimes it does take a few guesses to find the correct spice, but it’s a fun little game to see who can find the cinnamon first. I’m getting pretty good at it, but still struggle finding the cayenne vs paprika vs chili powder vs smoked paprika. It’s a good thing I wrote on the bottom of the spice jars to indicate which spice is in the jar!
Hubby and I actually got this idea from our old kitchen, as you can see in some of the before pics, there was a white strip of wood on the laminate backsplash. Logistically this is needed because behind that laminate, there is subway tiling. So the shelf is placed where the subway tiling meets the plaster walls. If you didn’t have the shelf, it would look bizarre. Here is a side shot of the shelf to show you what I’m talking about.
The white strip of wood was too small to be anything useful, so we knew that with the kitchen renovation, we wanted to install a shelf that could hold things. We made this shelf one afternoon. I didn’t take and pictures during the process, but hopefully I can fully describe how we did it.
First we headed to the home improvement store and bought some trim pieces. The first piece is just a 1.5″ strip of pine. The second is a piece of trim. It has and half round shape to it’s cross section. I drew a fun little picture to better show what the wood looked like.
The first thing I did was prime the wood and paint the first coat of black paint. Then I sanded the wood down prior to installing the shelf. Hubby pre drilled holes into the flat piece of wood about every 10 inches. Then he screwed that piece of wood onto the wall using 2″ screws. So at that point, we had a flat shelf with visible screw heads showing.
Next we attached the trim piece by holding it such that the flat part of the trim was flush with the flat wood already attached to the wall. This increased the depth of the shelf. Hubby used finishing nails to attach the trim portion of the shelf to the flat part.
Next, we sanded the entire shelf on the top just to ensure that the seam between the flat wood and the trim was not obvious. Lastly, I added another coat of black paint to the entire shelf. At the time, we didn’t have a backsplash and we hadn’t painted the walls, so I could be a bit sloppy with my painting. You can see the seam in this picture because there was some plaster work done after the final paint coat went on.
Now that the shelving was installed, I had to fill the spice jars. I ordered 60 spice jars from Pottery Barn. They weren’t the cheapest spice jars, but they fit perfectly since they have a 2×2″ footprint. I used a Sharpie pen to write on the bottom of each jar prior to filling it. I then used a small spice funnel to fill the spice jars with a variety of spices. Over by the sink, I filled the spice jars with various sprinkles.
I wanted to show off the fun red dual timer that Hubby’s mom got for me for Christmas 2008. I love it!
I hope these instructions make sense, but if you have questions, feel free to email me with questions and I can try to clarify things.
Check out my Week of Kitchen Renovations here.
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
So exciting!!! We are in the middle of a kitchen redo too! Our faucet just went in yesterday! Along with the new dishwasher(we didn’t have one before) is now hooked up!! That may be my favorite new part 🙂 no more washing dishes by hand!!
We’ve been looking around for backsplash. The area behind the sink, stove, and counters is just so bare… we can’t seem to make up our minds about which tiles we like… or if we prefer small bricks. It’s going to be a long process!
And p.s. my boyfriend is obsessed with the faucet you got. We don’t need a new one, but if we did, that’s the one we’d get!
Steph – Oh I can’t imagine not having a dishwasher!
Megan – I love the look of the glass mosiac subway tiling for a backsplash. We had an interesting obstacle in that we have REAL subway tiling on the wall to about 4 feet and the previous owners used liquid nails to attach a laminate backsplash. So we needed something that could be glued back on.
Oh how exciting for the change! I love the redo!
Wicked jealous, I love it. My wife and I talk about our kitchen re-do all the time, even though we don’t have a dime put away for it. But when we do, it will be so fun. The kitchen is by far my favorite room in the house.
Jen: The sink and faucet look beautiful. What I can see of the blacksplash and spice rack, it looks fantastic too. I love, love, love the Vulga Blue granite in our kitchen and I think the glass tile backsplash, although very pricey, really gave the kitchen the splash of color and uniqueness we were looking for! Ok, I really love the chandeliers….they are a real conversation piece and also unique (not for everyone, especially if you are in to simple, clean lines).
Jennifer – Thanks!
Joe – The kitchen is our fav room too. A renovation is a fun/exciting/stressful time. Good luck if you ever get around to it.
Nancy – Thanks – I need to write up posts about the backsplash and spice rack/shelf. We just painted today so it’s all coming together!
It’s so funny – after reading your post on your kitchen and fancy new faucet, I saw the same faucet while at an open house and was showing off all its features to Andrew. Very cool!
I have that exact same faucets and I love it! I also have a deep stainless steel sink. So awesome!
I see that your faucet is on the right. Are you right-handed? I have seen it both ways and need to make a decision. Thanks.
Yes we are both right handed. I actually never thought about putting it on the left.
Yes the green patina looks cool on roofs and awnings. Although we’ll only be at the apartment occasionally and I admit if we arrived after being gone for many months and found the sink had turned into green patina, I might freak out!