Spice drawer refresh

As someone who enjoys cooking and cooks frequently in a rather small kitchen, I keep my spices in a kitchen drawer -- the drawer is large and fairly deep -- about 14 inches wide x 19 inches deep x 4 inches high.  The jars I had been using were cylindrical and just short enough that they could fit in the drawer standing up. But the drawer because rather disorganized and messy. Sometimes the drawer would jam if a jar went askew.

So I found some new spice jars on Amazon with pretty Acadia wood lids. I like the jars because they're square instead of round, and thus won't roll. I also got some  coordinating Acadia wood "tiers" for the spices to go on (also on Amazon). Before I ordered, I measured to make sure that the dimensions would fit my drawer. 

The jars and tiered "shelves", for lack of a better word, arrived today. So I spent the late afternoon and early evening tackling the project of cleaning and reorganizing my spice drawer. 

First, I removed everything from my spice drawer and vacuumed it before wiping it out. 

Second, I washed all of the jars, lids, and shaker caps in the sink in soapy water, rinsing thoroughly. I actually used my hair dryer to dry the insides of the jars and lids on high heat to hurry things along.

Third, I filled and labeled each jar using the labels that came with them. Thankfully, there was a corresponding label for every spice I had-- in the event that I had any spices for which a label was not provided, there were several blank labels and a marker to write the name in. 

It was a rather long and arduous process, but it's finished and the drawer looks great.  There was just enough room for all the spices I wanted to use!

The only thing I might do is change where the spices are. Right now, I have them in alphabetical order, but I'm thinking that I might want to keep the spices I use most often (e.g., garlic powder and seasoned salt) in the front tiers and the spices I use like once a year at Christmas (e.g., anise seed and Chinese five spice) in the last row because it's  hard to reach without taking out the whole drawer.