About a month ago Todd and I were standing in our new/old kitchen, pondering where we were going to put our spices. In the last kitchen we used a large rack meant for I’m not sure what, mounted on some free wall space that was convenient to both our main prep area as well as the stove.
Unfortunately, no such space existed in the Dollhouse kitchen, and we had a lot of spices to contend with. Tabling the issue for the time being, I went back into my office and what was waiting for me but an offer to try out the Spicy Shelf and host a giveaway so one of you can try it out as well!
So, the Spicy Shelf is one of those As Seen on TV products that you might have seen on late-night television. Sometimes these products get a bad reputation but we’ve actually used several with positive results, including the Magic Mesh screen “door” on our screened porch! So I was more than willing to give the SpicyShelf a shot since it seemed like the answer to a very pertinent problem.
The pieces ready for assembly… (unintentional “action” shot)
The spicy shelf came with 2 shelves, several extenders, and two different heights of legs for use in cabinets with or without shelf pins.
These are the tabs on the legs and the slots on the brace that keeps the legs from wiggling at the base… as if they could!)
The legs, in fact all of the components, snap together quite well and are shaped so that there’s really only one way to put them together–the right way–and getting them apart again (as I dry-fit the shelves to my cabinet) is pretty tough. All in all, the unit feels pretty stable to me.
Hmmm, not *quite* right. And the instructions made it seem like having one side unsupported by either a wall or another Spicy Shelf was not the best of ideas.
Now, the width of our chosen cabinet was just wider than the suggested maximum width of a single shelf but was just wide enough to accommodate one skinny Shelf and one shelf with the narrow extenders added to each side. To have some fun, and allow for some of the larger bottles we have, I used one set of tall legs and one set of short.
That’s much better!
And they worked out just right! I could have added another narrow extender but the construction of our cabinets weren’t going to allow it thanks to an interior beam in the right front corner.
Maybe a little fuller than the display, but still quite easy to access!
Of course, I still have far more spices than these were intended to hold, so when everything was in there was still a bit of doubling-up on the bottom rows, but if you’re capable of more editing than I, your kitchen cabinet might look more like the demonstration pictures. It’s still quite easy to access everything and, as advertised, the taller condiment bottles can sit in the middle of the u-shaped shelves to maximize space.
And 2 rows of vinegars/sauces fit in there, too!
Is there anything I would change/improve upon the Spicy Shelf? Slightly deeper shelves would be nice for the larger spice bottles and jars. They fit, but having an extra centimeter would make them feel a lot more secure.
That one tiny suggestion aside, I really am glad we got the chance to try out the expandable shelf system and might even order another set to use elsewhere in the house! According to the video on spicyshelf.com it works well for craft rooms and cosmetics, too. Of course, if you’d like to get a set for yourself, you have two options. First, you can enter the giveaway by guessing how many spice bottles, jars, and canisters I have in the single shelf where my Spicy Shelf resides (this does not include the bottles of vinegars, soy sauce, etc.–just the dry bits). And while you can see some of them in the pictures above, some areas are 2-bottles deep, so it’s still anyone’s guess.
Except me, of course, because I counted them!
Use the Rafflecopter widget above to enter. The contest will run for one week (through Monday, August 25th) and I’ll contact the winner on Tuesday, August 26th. The contest is open to US residents only and you’ll need to share your street address with me (no PO Boxes) so that I can pass it along to the shipping agent (the prize will come directly from them, not me).
Of course, if you just cannot wait, you can use promo code SPICE5 (that’s the number 5 at the end, not an ‘s’) over at www.SpicyShelf.com and get $5 off your own set!
And if you’re curious about what we did with the old spice rack, turns out it just fits in our under-sink cabinets and is now holding rolls of foils and boxes of bags and baggies. Yay for not wasting anything, including space!
A place for everything…
In case it wasn’t obvious, I was provided a Spicy Shelf for the purpose of review. All opinions are my own and no further compensation was received for this post.