Snazzy Spice Rack

Last week I showed off some Goodwill purchases and teased that I had a project in mind for one of them: these wooden cubbies, which were a steal at $0.99! 

I decided that these cuties would be the perfect place to stash some of our spices. Previously, all the ones that don't hang out on our fridge shelf (another Goodwill find) were crowding up a cabinet, and I thought they'd be easier to access out on the counter.

As with all Goodwill buys, some disinfecting and tweaking was in order before I could put this bad boy to use. I dusted him off and then set about to removing the hangers from the back of the cubbies. I removed these for two reasons: one, we don't have much wall space close to the stove, so I wasn't planning on hanging the cubbies, and two, one of the cubby walls is chipped, so I needed to turn the whole apparatus around to hide that blemish. I just used some pliers to pull the staples and hooks right out of the wood.

Then I set the cubbies up on the counter and filled them up with 15 of our spices.

Upon completion, however, my OCD/"I-want-everything-to-be-pretty-and-matching" disease kicked in. Even though I arranged them in a pattern, I really disliked how mismatched all the spice containers were. And the spice lids were just glaringly clashing with our kitchen color scheme (aqua, yellow, orange, and white).

I presented the problem to my wonderful mama (since I completed this project during my parents' visit two weeks back), and she suggested such an easy, perfect fix--simply turn the bottles around so that the spices show through the clear bottoms! Duh. Done and done. I love the natural colors of the spices!

Eventually we'll probably upgrade to new, matching spice jars and I'll create my own labels because I love homogeneity (and I'm drooling over Jen's Dollar Store spice organization--but I couldn't find any good jars at our local dollar joints!). But for now, this Goodwill spice rack with my original spice jars looks great to me!

Speaking of labels...though I love seeing the spices through the bottoms of the jars, I didn't love that I'd have to take out multiple bottles in search of one spice. (Some are easy to ID with a glance, of course, like the red pepper flakes and bay leaves, but other spices kinda look alike). So I made myself a handy dandy spice key on Word! It hangs in a nearby cabinet by our take-out menus and pantry inventory:

I used one of my new favorite fonts, Lavanderia, for the title.

So that's how I turned a $0.99 Goodwill find into a snazzy looking spice rack! I must say, when I bought it I planned to paint it white, but now I kinda like the natural wood look. What do you think?

Have you ever repurposed a cheap Goodwill find? How so? Tell me all about it in the comments!