2006: a spice odyssey

I love my house. But there are a few things that I wish were different. It's ridiculously trivial in the grand scheme of things, but I've reached the breaking point with my spice storage. It's just no good.

I want storage that lets me see everything at-a glance and that doesn't take up more space in my already-crammed cabinets. My solution:

1. Mount small shelves / baskets inside my cabinet doors near my stove.
   
2. Store my spices, one bottle deep, in said baskets for easy viewing and use.
   
3. Make sure the edge is high enough so that the bottles don't go flying out when the doors are opened.
4. Make sure that the edge does not completely obfuscate the labels.

My dad was in town today and in typical fashion, I asked for his help with what I thought was a simple home-improvement project. Three hours later, we'd been to no less than five stores (Lowe's, Ikea, the Container Store, Target, and Bed Bath & Beyond), searching for the perfect spice racks.

Sure, I saw the latest in new-fangled kitchen storage gadgetry, including magnetized (!) spice racks. But nothing quite worked for what I want in my kitchen. As I said to my dad by the time we left store #3, I'm finding it hard not to take this personally. The more I think about it, the more I think I may have just landed upon a million-dollar idea.