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Hello all, I am contemplating changing my spice storage. I have a spice addiction, er collection, and my kitchen is very small. I have a bunch in a drawer of a microwave stand and some over my stove (not optimal, I know).

I do have a small, tiny wall about 9" wide between a kitchen window and a glass door. It is a north facing wall (south side of the house), and would not get any "direct" sunlight but it would get quite a lot of ambient sunlight.

I am thinking of doing small wall-mounted shelves something like this all the way up the wall and spending some dollars to get matching jars so it doesn't look awful. The idea is to make the spices both a design statement and get them away from the oven.

My question... glass jars? pottery jars? I'd prefer glass because spices are pretty and it is hard to see when you are getting low on something in an opaque jar. How much damage am I looking at from ambient sunlight?

Corollary question: are some spices more susceptible to sunlight damage? Maybe I could put some spices in pottery at the bottom of the wall.

I don't think I will move forward with this idea if it has to be all pottery.

Thanks,

--Lisa

My fridge has a tip-out drawer (made for fresh fruit - It's a Kenmore Elite) and I use that for my preferred Penzey jars of spices/herbs. Keeps them really fresh. The rest are in a carousel in a corner cabinet away from the range. The jars that are infrequently used are stored in the door of my upright freezer.
I also seem to have a spice addiction.

Lisa,

All spices are subject to damage by sunlight. Herbs go faster, but pretty much everything will lose color and flavor within a few days of being exposed to direct sunlight. So, I think a different plan.

Mind you, if you could find a pretty matched set, pottery spice jars could be quite beautiful. Heck, I could make them for you.* Smoked glass is also nice, and an effective protector, but good luck finding smoked glass spice jars; I haven't seen any outside of antique shops in years.

The approach I take is to store the jars on their sides, with the opaque lid facing out. This also makes the lids more readable, and allows storing more spices in a smaller area of wall space (77 spice jars in less than 2 sq. ft.):



Total cost here was something like $10 worth of lumber and $4 of paint. If I felt like doing it over again, I'd use copper-plated steel rods for the crossbars (aluminum would be much cheaper, but not as pretty), countersunk into the wood; the above cabinet was made entirely using hand tools, built on the kitchen table, since that's all I had at the time.

Mind you, I also put this on a wall which doesn't get direct sunlight (it's shaded by cabinets).


(* although you'd have to wait 4 months, pay more than you're probably willing to, and use cork-sealed jars since it's not reasonable to put threaded lids on hand-thrown pottery. So on the whole, probably a bad idea.)

Oh wow, I found some truly stunning ceramic spice jars for sale online. These probably take the prize:

http://img0.etsystatic.com/005/0/648894 ... 8_lpox.jpg

"stunning" is the word...

<sigh> I had a feeling that would be the answer. I was hoping that non-direct light wouldn't be as damaging.

Thanks.

--Lisa

I keep mine in mason jars (size ranges from the tiny 250 ml ones up to 1 litre) with the white plastic lids. (http://www.amazon.com/Ball-Regular-Mout ... B0000BYC4B) . I like these as they are easy to get into and I always have mason jars from other applications. The small ones stack nicely and I just do labels from my label maker.
They are in a cupboard to the left of my stove. Not as convenient as being above the stove but better for them. Extras of what is in the cupboard are in the freezer. I also have some in a drawer to the left of the stove in a spice drawer insert but find I hardly ever use the bottles there and really could use the drawer space, so will remove it soon.

Fuzzy, you gave me an idea.... I may do glass jars and frost them myself.

I just don't have any other available wall, fridge or drawer space in my kitchen.

--Lisa

Hi Lisa, since the problem seems to be the jars being exposed to any light, have you considered using metal jars such as the ones used with magnetic strips? I thought of other alternatives, all have problems but... First is to cover regular spice jars (which already have shaker tops) with pretty shelf paper so they are sunlight proof. If done correctly could be very attractive. My mom used to do things like that, I don't have the manual dexterity or patience. The second is to look for blue bottles (shaker tops would be a challenge), but I really love colored glass. Many rxs come in amber and though plastic, they do come in a variety of sizes.

Finally, what first came into my head was to create something like this rack for spices. You could vary the pocket sizes and make one to try and then add others if it works. You could then put the jars inside and it won't matter if they are different. If you are talented, you could embroider the spice name in the pocket front or write it in with a marker. That should be enough to keep the light out. They might make them already, but sewing one would be fairly simple once you make your pattern. It certainly would be a statement and reminiscent of dear Martha.

Another idea is something like these: http://www.target.com/p/threshold-4pc-w ... detaillink

Which could be custom done quite cheaply with melamine board painted out to blend into the space and a nice trim in front to hide the particle board. We did that all around one of our boys room for under $50.