Spice Drawer FINISHED

Hello there!  I hope you all had a wonderful Veteran's Day weekend!  I did some of my first real Christmas shopping of the season this past Saturday.  Every year, my two sisters and I go with our Mom to help her get gifts for the grandchildren, in-laws, and of course her children!  It's a fun, LONG, day of shopping, but it's come to be one of those traditions I really look forward to and ultimately enjoy!

OK, so I have deviated.  I guess the reason I was sharing all that was to say that my mind is now wrapped around the upcoming holidays, and not so much on DIY projects around the house....BUT, I was able, with my hubby's help, to finish my spice drawer.  A few weeks ago, I shared how I converted all my mix-matched spices into a uniform look with spice jars from World Market.  You can check out that post: Organizing Your Spices.  Well, we had this vision of placing all the spices in a drawer, neatly organized, so you could easily read the labels affixed on top of each jar, and readily access each and every spice.  Let's just say, that was not the case prior to this little project.  I had spices stacked atop spices.  I would have to take 5-10 spices out of my cabinet just to find the spice I needed.  Well, NO MORE!

You would think it would have been as simple as transferring the spice jars from the cabinet to the drawer, however, if you really think about it, the jars would just slide around in the drawer when opening and closing it, and then there would, yet again, be disorganization.  Well, we have to thank Rodney!  Rodney is my friend Missy's husband.  If you remember, I introduced you to Missy  in that post about organizing your spices. Rodeny had the clever idea of creating a base with holes cut out for each jar, which would eliminate them from sliding all around.  So, my hubby began making this "base" while I was shopping on Saturday.  Isn't he sweet!

He found a small piece of plywood, 3/4" thick, left-over from another project and cut the plywood to the dimensions of the interior of  the drawer. Since all drawers are not created equal, well they often measure at different lengths and widths, and even depths, it's probably not overly important that I share the dimensions of my drawer. However, before you begin this little project, please make sure that your spice jars are the correct height to stand upright in your drawer.

Next, measure the base of the spice jar so to determine what size to cut the holes for them to then sit in.  My jars were roughly 1 3/4" in diameter  My hubby decided to cut the holes 2" in diameter.  After some fast calculating, he determined that he would be able to fit five holes across the width of the plywood, and 7 holes deep, leaving me with 35 holes for 35 spice jars.  Before he began, he marked the plywood as to where the holes needed to be drilled.  He didn't have a 2" hole saw for his drill so he had to buy one, but I think it cost all of $13 at Lowes!  He did share that it is a bit time-consuming to cut the holes.  Here's the base with all the holes cut

Now, here's a couple of things we learned along the way:  we could have fit 6 holes across the plywood, but there would have been a very thin piece of plywood between each jar.  My hubby thought it would be a bit more rugged if he left more spacing between each jar, but that was his preference!  The other thing we learned is, your drawer doesn't come all the way out, so the last row of holes isn't really necessary as you can't access them as easily.  Thankfully, I only have 30 spices, so I told my hubby not to bother and drill the holes in the last row.

It fit into the drawer perfectly!

The next logical step is to begin placing all your spice jars in the holes, but not for me.  You see, when I put the labels on top of my jars, I never did anything to seal or protect the labels, they are only paper!  So, my friend Missy had suggested I put Mod Podge over each label.  So that's what I did, with the help of my 10-year-old son, and a small foam brush!  The Mod Podge actually dries clear, and now my labels are all sealed!

 

 Here's a couple of different views of my "new" spice drawer!

I love how they look in the drawer, but better yet, I love that I can read all the labels and readily access any spice whenever I may need it.  It's really the simple little things like this that make our lives a bit easier!

Once I cleaned out all the spices from my cabinet, well, I then had to reorganize it.  Remember what it looked like before this little project

BEFORE

AFTER

It's a little bit better.  I hope to get some canisters for my counter tops for my flour, sugar, etc. so that will free up a bit more space in my cabinet and look a bit tidier!  

Are you working on any projects to help de-clutter and organize your life?  Please do share!