Monday, October 26, 2009

First Cure Project

As most of you know, I cannot resist little projects as they come up during the Cure. This one was really very simple and because of that, kind of fun.

So, the steps to any project are:

1) Identify the problem:


Ugliness!

And, the "wall" behind the spice rack is actually our chimney flue. Thus, screws put into the "wall" (which is a piece of plasterboard, about 3/8" thick) aren't in there very deeply. So, I have an engineering problem as well as an aesthetic one.

2) Find a solution.

I considered actually trying to create a series of shelves from threaded rods, nuts, bolts and drilled wood and running it from ceiling to floor somehow, but it was just exhausting. In my search for "spice rack" however, google coughed up these:



3) Assemble the bits:

I found the spice jars at Wally World and the steel plate at Home Despot. Then, I found mirror mounting tape. (I had been going to use mirror clips but this is much, much better. It's what I used to call "foam squares" in my former scrapbooking days.) The package reassured me it would hold weight. (One inch of tape for every 1/8th of a pound. The jars and steel plate weighed 2 lbs altogether according to my food scale.) I "over-engineered" it.



And so here we are, the first project complete.


disclaimers: I'm not sure it entirely "goes with" my style statement of "classical whimsey" or whatever two word string I'm using this week. Now that it is done, I think it may be a tad "too industrial" for the quaint jar and shelf arrangement adjacent to it. But then maybe the juxtaposition is precisely "my style." I don't know. The husband really likes it. That's something.

(Another kitchen project is also complete. But as it involved verathaning the school book shelf, there aren't any exciting visuals.)

I'll have the "entryway "before" photos and the kitchen "after" post soon, I hope.

8 comments :

drwende said...

VERY nice! That's much visually cleaner!

scb said...

I love it. And you can create whimsy by rearranging the jars into pictures if you like... ;-)

Well done!

Anne At Large said...

And there's plenty of room for more, which is always nice too! Great job!

Anonymous said...

oh, that looks awesome. i completely love it.

Christine in DC said...

I actually kind of liked the before! :) I was going to comment how nice it was. But, if you want to get "whimsical," you could potentially paint the magnetic board in whatever color scheme you go with to make it look less industrial (or perhaps cover it with vintage wallpaper or fabric? If the magnets are strong enough...)

Spice Rack said...

The first step to an organized kitchen is to formulate a plan and assemble the proper items. One of the most challenging aspects of kitchen efficiency is organizing spices. Many recipes require an assortment of spices. Good thing the Spice rack is invented.

Paula said...

I can not believe how fast forward you are!
Please tell me it took you 3 months and 2 years to get this done ;-)

And it is still in use.
Congratulations!

Alana in Canada said...

Wow, Paula, I can't believe you founfd the original post.

For future reference, I just wanted to add that the mirror mounting tape could not withstand the steam from boiling things on the stove. Instead, we used washers and screws to hold everything in place. (We considered mirror clips, but the sheet metal was not thick enough.)

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