I love the pantry in our house, but there wasn’t an area to put spices that made them easy to find. I recently sorted the spices and discovered three containers of garlic salt. Apparently I thought I was out because I couldn’t find any so bought more. Three times.

I decided to make my own spice rack for the pantry door. I’ve tried the wire racks screwed to the door, but they tend to fall off when accidentally bumped. (And I often forget my edges and bump into things! Ugh.) Not to mention cleaning up glass and wasted spice from the floor is not a preferred activity. So I measured my space and my largest containers and made my plan.

I went to the lumber store and picked out 1x4x8 select pine, and found some beautiful embossed pine trim. There are several ways to construct spice racks; I could use rabbet and dado joints, biscuit joints, or mortis and tenon joints. I decided to work on my chisel and hand saw skills and do mortis and tenon joints. It took me a while, but the last mortis was much cleaner than my first! Here is a picture of the side boards with all the mortises cut.

The saw I used is a Marples hand saw, fine cut double blade pull saw, which I absolutely love for fine cuts. (Especially when my band saw is buried at the back of the garage. Cleaning out the garage will take a couple stages and the chicken coop comes first!) I also used a 1/2″ straight chisel that I made sure was nice and sharp before I started.

I was pleased when I glued everything together how well it came out! I was planning on painting it white, but the wood looked so pretty I changed my mind and put on a couple coats of clear. After filling the nail holes and a few gaps with wood filler. (Have you tried the color changing wood filler? I haven’t used it before, but it worked well. A little shocking to spread bright pink paste on my project, but when it was dry it faded to a nice natural color, and sanded well.)

So here is the final project all ready for my spices! I’ve made the mistake of putting items on a finished shelf before the recommended 24 hours, and have had things stick to the shelf. So I’ll give it a good 48 hours then load it up! Yay for pantry reorganization!