Tag Archives: kitchen cabinets

May15

How to Organize Your Pantry Part One – Dealing with Spices

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How to Organize Your Pantry Part One – Dealing with Spices

I have a very small pantry. No matter how much I try to keep it organized it always looks messy. There just isn’t enough room on shelves for everything I want to keep in there. I recently came up with the idea of making a snack bar to keep chips, snacks, and bottled water. To see my snack bar click here. With those big items out of the way it was time to focus on the spices. I don’t have a lot of room on the counter to keep spice racks. I also don’t have room in cabinets or drawers. I took some time to look in my pantry and found that there is a lot of wasted space under each shelf. I decided to put my spices there.

Spices Before

I bought a tension rod (I love those things!) at Target to fit the size of my pantry. Typically tension rods are round but I found one that was flat! These are my favorite. They have a latch that keeps them in place (no more falling down) and the flat surface means things wont fall off of it as easily.

Spices After - all nice and neat on tension rod


I put the tension rod in my pantry below a shelf and simply sat all of my spices on top of it. My new “spice rack” cost me $4. How awesome is that!

Jul10

Tension Rod Divider

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Tension Rod Divider

I love tension rods. They are super cheap and there are so many things you can do with them. One of my favorite uses for a tension rod is to use them in a pantry or closet to store muffin pans and cookie sheets in an upright position. This can save you a lot of room versus lying them flat on the shelf.

Tension rod divider

To use tensions rods in this way, first measure the amount of vertical space you have between shelves. Tension rods come in different sizes and you want to make sure you don’t buy one that is too long. You can buy tension rods at just about any discount store and they are usually just a few dollars a piece. If you’re going to prop up one side of the pans against a wall you will only need two rods. If you’re going to put them in the middle of a shelf you’ll need to buy four (two for each side).

Simply attach the tension rod up and down at the front of the shelf and put the second one directly behind it towards the back of the shelf. If you’re putting this in the middle of your shelf do the same thing a few inches away. Now you can save space and store your thin pans upright!