I call this my spice cupboard even though there are are plates and bowls in this cupboard. This cupboard is out of hand. Everything is shoved in there where ever these is a space. It is difficult to find anything in a timely manner.
The refills for the spices kept under the cupboard are kept here. The spices that are used more rarely, and for the bulk-size of the spices used daily, are also kept here. Once the spices are under control, the rest of the cupboard can get under control too.
The first thing to do was to remove nearly everything from the cupboard. I placed everything on the counter. It was a huge mess. I have way too many of those ramekins. Some will be used to house small items and the rest will find a new home.
The older, expired, spices were discarded. Any spices that did not have an air-tight container were placed in labeled zip-lock sandwich bags.
I picked up a small basket at Dollarama* (dollar store) that fits nicely onto the cupboard shelf. Inside I am placing all the extra spices and rarely used spices. I can easily slide the basket out when I need to access the items inside. I am planning on only purchasing enough spices (bulk store) to fit the spice containers, going forward.
It took a while to figure out where to put things in the cupboard. It is not 100% complete as we need to live with this for a bit to see if it is working.
I didn't really touch the top shelf, except to move the peanut butter done an shelf. On the top shelf are the less used soup bowls as well as my manual food processor and a few larger bowls. A couple of larger bowls do sit on top of the dinner plates because they are used almost daily. It made sense to move the peanut butter down, as well, as I am often reaching for it. I used to keep it in the pantry but it kept making its way to the counter or this cupboard so I stopped fighting it and just gave it a home here.
Between the peanut butter and the measuring cups is a container of bag clips. We often use these and it is good to have a central home for them. By putting these in a visible central location, with its own label, I am hoping that they will find their way back home (instead of being left all over the apartment) and that my men will stop asking me where they can find one to clip their bag-de-jour.
The shelf, beneath that, has my smaller plates as well as the most used soup bowls. I have also labeled three of those ramekins to hold elastic bands, bread clips, and odds & ends. I need to label the small round wooden box, as well. It is holding the extra blades to my “Graty”.
Here is the spice end of the spice cupboard. Yes, I do use a lot of spices in my cooking! The dollar store basket is easy to pull out in order to refill the spice jars or to grab the seldom used spices. Everything is now in air-tight containers or bags. Above that shelf I have more spices and my most used measuring cups. I also have little stainless steel bowls that I use when measuring out spices and ingredients. I like to get all my ingredients out and in cooking order, so that when I actually start cooking everything is ready to go. (The two clear things in the metal containers are caps you put on your soda-pop can so that you can drink from it, and then cap it, if you don’t finish off the can.)
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I love adding labels to help me remember where things belong, and to assist my family to know where to expect to find items. Labels are such simple things that make a huge difference in our mindset.
Overall, the cupboard is much neater and more user-friendly. We’ll live with this for a few weeks to see how it is working, and make any tweaks that we feel necessary.
See you next Friday!
*I have no affiliation to, nor am I paid by, Dollarama. It is just a local and convenient dollar store.
