DIY Spice Shelves

9 Materials
$10
1 Day
Easy

Hey there! It’s no secret that I have a small kitchen, right!? So, when a friend asked me how I stored my spices, it got me thinking... not very well! She said she wanted something to hang on the back of her cabinet door to maximize space, which I thought was a grand idea. We shopped around a bit and found some cute little shelves from IKEA that seemed to be perfect, but were too long for both of our cabinet doors. Bummer, I know, but that inspired me to whip something up myself!

Here’s the situation I had going on before! 😳 These 3-tier little spice racks seem great, but I was always knocking things down in the front when getting stuff from the back and second row and the spinny shelf deal I had on the second shelf was full of unused and expired spices. 👎🏻

To build my new spice shelves, I measured my cabinet door and decided I needed 15” long shelves. I cut a 1x3 to 15” and then two more little pieces to 2.5” - I did this three times, since I was making three shelves for myself.


My friend wanted 14” shelves, so her cut list was a 1x3 to 14” and then two pieces at 2.5” for each of her shelves.

Then I put a few dots of glue on each edge of the 2.5” pieces and set my 15” piece on top, adding a few nails on each side.

After glueing and nailing, the shelves looked like this. This is the bottom and sides of the shelf.

To be able to attach the shelves to the cabinet door, I added two pocket holes with my Kreg Jig to the bottom of each shelf.

Then I drilled a 1/4” hole on the top front corner of each side to be able to add a dowel to the front of my shelves, so my spices wouldn’t fall out. I used 1/4” dowels.

Next, I cut my dowel to 15” and slid it through my holes, adding a little glue inside the bottom hole and on the outside of each hole to secure the dowel.


I cut my friend’s dowels to 14”, since her shelves were that length.

I also added wood filler to any of the areas my drill bit took off extra slivers of wood. When the wood filler and glue were dry, I gave each shelf a quick sand to get them ready for paint.

The 1x3 is just deep enough that the spice jars won’t slam around when I close my cabinet door. Check out my Instagram to see more of my DIY projects!

I thought it would be easiest to take my cabinet door off to attach each spice shelf, and it definitely was! Measuring was so much easier with the door laid out in front of me rather than in the air. I painted my shelves the same color as my cabinets (Sherwin Williams Alabaster) and used 1” screws to attach the shelves to my cabinet door.


If you don’t have an exact color you want your shelves to match, you could save some time and spray paint the shelves like my friend did!

When I got the door hung back up, I realized the back of the shelves could use a fresh coat of white paint as well. One project always leads to another, am I right!?

The fresh paint on the top two shelves really brightens up the cabinet! So yes, I added one more thing on my long list for myself now - paint the back of the rest of the shelves. Joy! 🤣

To finish off my new spice shelves, I ordered these matching glass spice jars and used my favorite Dymo label maker to label them. If you don’t have a label maker, you’re missing out!

All done! I also ordered some 9” lazy susan turntables to help me organize the rest of my things! To see more of my kitchen, visit my Instagram.

Who knew spices could look so cute!? 😍

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  • Helena Helena on Oct 16, 2019

    Do the shelves hit other items What is the clearance

  • Kareema Griest Kareema Griest on Oct 17, 2019

    I live in a rented apartment, so I can't put screws into the cabinet doors. Could heavy duty 3M hooks work or velco strips? And where did you get all of those AWESOME spice jars?!?!

  • Donna Donna on Oct 17, 2019

    When you close the cabinet, won’t it take up a bunch of space? So those round tables on top shelf won’t work, right?

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