We have ours there (bottom shelves, left of the stove) and it's a lot of leaning over and you have to label the tops of the bottles. I don't think I'd do it again, but we also didn't have much choice.

I like the top shelf and I keep oils on the bottom shelf so that's not too bad. But, I have no idea what's on the middle shelf. I do know that it's stuff I haven't used since the reno because I practically have to sit on the floor to read what's there.

I keep a bunch of spices in the top cabinet next to the hood also because I really hate leaning over to find what I need. It's the least functional area of my new kitchen.

In your same position and about to order one, I'm finding this interesting reading! But I think I'll go ahead with it because I use a lot of bottles of things for cooking - wines and sauces (fish, soy, etc) that I like to have handy to the stovetop. But I can see that stooping for spices would be a pain. It could be that a pullout in both locations would be most helpful if you have the space and money. My concern with putting it up high wasn't so much the relatively narrow depth but the height it would have to be at to allow under-counter space. If you happen to have an upper cabinet that goes to the countertop -- if you can design your kitchen space in that way (I've seen pictures of such kitchens) I think that would be best of all. Else, you have a ton of space in the upper pullout that you can't reach *either*! And I was worried about the narrowness of those shelves and things falling all that way. Ick.

So I think, personally, planning on bottles for the lower pullout and spices in the bottom section of the upper cabinet will be best.

Again, it's not as if I actually have any of this. Good luck!

Hi,
I have installed bottom spice racks and upper spice racks... uppers are 12" deep. Tell your DH they do exist! I use them when I am short on space. My clients like them in the wall units... and I haven't had complaints when they are used on the bottom.
Personally, I am tall and I would die a slow death if I had to always bend over to get my spices... My poor back! However, I love the look... when I flank a range top with two 6" pullouts, hid behind chunky posts, and no one knows there is a secret spice shelf there! Cool.
On my site... there is a contemporary cherry kitchen... it has two 12" pullouts to the right and left of the range... customer loves it!
Remember when doing an upper pullout to get a drawer front to put on the unit... usually they come with just a plain front that won't be flush with the other doors. We usually use a drawer front placed vertically if it is appropriate.
Good luck,
Linda

Here is a link that might be useful: kitchen cabinets and design in Richmond

Like this?

{{!gwi}}

I installed this in my old house... worked so well, I pulled it out and brought it to my new place. I keep it in the cabinet left of the range. I also keep it on the 2nd shelf up (put a weight at the back of the shelf so when you do pull it down, it doesn't bring the shelf forward/up). I did it on the 2nd shelf so I still have the easy access shelf, easy access. now the 2nd shelf is doing just as much work for me.

I have it in a 24 in cab, but it would fit in as small as 18in. (15 might fit, but perhaps not allow it to come down). my cabs are regular 12 in deep.

http://www.amazon.com/Rubbermaid-Pull-Down-Spice-Rack/dp/B0000CF37W/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden&qid=1299694210&sr=8-1

If the spice pullouts aren't too wide, it's not that difficult to see what's where b/c they can't be stored any more than "two deep"...which means you can see what's what just by glancing down, although you may have to look at both sides to see everything. When storing your spices two deep, one faces left, the other right...so their labels are visible from both sides.

I'm speaking from experience b/c I have 6" ones flanking my cooktop and I can always see what I have just by looking down at them.

As to bending down...yes, there is some, but if you put your taller items on the bottom shelf, it's really not that bad...and I'm taller than average (for a woman, at least!) at 5'10". My taller family also does not seem to have a problem with them. They sure beat having them across the kitchen in the pantry like in my old kitchen!

As to upper cabinets instead...yes, they have them (check Rev-A-Shelf to see some examples). However, unless you're quite tall, I would think it would be even a bigger issue to access anything above the first or second shelf. For someone average height or shorter, items stored much above a "first or second shelf height" are for less-used items b/c it can be difficult to reach them, even when they pull out. (With a pullout, you could probably easily reach the second shelf, but probably not any above.)

My mom has always kept her spices in a drawer just under the counter, beside the range. There are inserts that hold the bottles at a slight tilt so they don't bang into each other and the labels always face up. This configuration really works--you can see everything (no pushing bottles around to see what's behind them) and you don't need to label the tops. It also protects spices from light and heat so they last as long as reasonably possible. (Obviously cabinets or pullouts also protect them, but some people put spices on an open shelf or an inset in the wall behind the range, which leaves them constantly exposed to light.)

As for liquids like vanilla, almond essence, etc., you can either put them in a pullout or wall cabinet with the oil or just make sure you close them tightly and set them at a tilt in the drawer along with all your dry spices. I'm definitely going with this plan in our new kitchen. I may even put two 3"-tall drawers on top of each other specifically for spices... what can I say, I have a lot of spices :-)

There was a great thread about storing a collection of spices. One of the best ideas was putting all the bottles into a regular drawer just below the counters in the lowers. The tops of the bottles are all very accessible and visible that way. Put round labels on the lid of the jar rather than the rectangles on the side. Then you don't have to bend to see them. There are some places online that will make up sets of round labels for you or you can buy them ready made or make them yourself.

+1 to putting the taller items on the bottom.

Oils, etc will go on the bottoms of ours. One of the pullouts that we were looking at has angled shelves on the top shelf, so you can put your most frequently used items there and easily find them when you pull it out. It is less efficient than packing everything in a plain horizontal shelf, but it makes it easier to find things. This was a 12" wide unit.

While looking for a picture of that (which I did *not* find), I found this:
{{!gwi}}
... which I find more interesting than I thought I would. The top drawer could hold the smaller spices, with one of these, perhaps...
{{!gwi}}
leaving the top shelf of the pullout for taller species, and the bottom for oils and such.

I've never had a spice pullout in lower cabs, but I know it would drive me absolutely nuts to have to bend down, concentrate, read carefully, and push stuff out of the way to get what I needed. I'm always in a rush while I'm cooking because my meal plan was too ambitious or our schedule got thrown off so anything that slows me down ticks me off.

I'm planning drawer storage with either those cool little spice tins from the thread that Sayde mentioned or with a drawer insert that tilts the bottles like Steve shows above. Quick access. No bending. Happier me.

@wizardnm -- That picture is really helpful. We currently have a 12" base pullout spec'd in our island and that may be too wide/unwieldy if your picture shows a 9" base!

When we remodeled our kitchen not quite two years ago, spice storage was a big question for us. DH loves to cook and spices and bags of herbs overflowed from the upper cupboard carousel and random other places. The solution, which has worked very well, is a pullout rack on along each side of our cooktop. We can see all easily without bending, as almost everything is in mason jars which are labelled on top in alphabetical order. The diameter of the mason jars is about 2 3/4 inches, which fits perfectly on the 3inch wide shelves. Each shelf fits 7 jars, and there are 3 shelves in each pullout, and we do have 42 filled jars. The lower shelf height is 10 1/2 inches from base to top, with a 3 inch bar so we could easily put in items much higher than the mason jars. I am quite amazed that this system has last lasted so well, given the chaos that we came from!

I thought a lot about where to put my spices. My eyesight isn't so great and I'm not the "organized" type who would use special labeled bottles. I ended up using the top drawer (21" wide I think) in my work area, and laid the bottles on their side. I got a cool spice insert from IKEA - very cheap that keeps the bottles from rolling around. No need for special containers or labels. Its one of my favorite things in the new kitchen. I also have an 12" wide upper cabinet above my counter where I keep larger spice containers and oils, etc.

Here is a link that might be useful: IKEA Spice drawer inset

I keep my spices in a lazy susan in the lower cabinet, just to the right of where I prep for cooking - the lazy susan is probably about 2 feet from my stove. Aside from salt and pepper, there aren't many things that I typically add in on the fly. I have mine in alphabetical order and I usually pull anything out while I'm prepping if I intend on adding it to something on the stove. I rarely find myself having to look for a spice in the midst of cooking. It was actually my mother's suggestion to use the lazy susan and to alphabetize them when she helped me unpack while moving into this house 15 years ago. The method seems to have worked for me all these years as I don't really intend on changing it when I redo this kitchen unless we completely redo our layout and I need to move it!

I'm going to link the long thread about spice storage that Sayde was talking about. We have a small kitchen. But we were determined not to commit the mistakes of our past kitchens regarding spice storage. A previous home had the little plastic stair-step shelf (from BB&B) in an upper cabinet. It was OK, but while it made the spices slightly more visible than without the stair-step, it still was jumbled and hard to fumble through. It didn't really allow you to reach quickly in and grab a spice jar while cooking. Worse though, was our pre-reno kitchen with the vertical pull-out spice rack. DH swore that no matter what, that kind of spice pull-out would not be a part of our renovated kitchen. He hated bending to see the spices, the bottles moved around and shifted too much in the pull-out, you had to move from one side around to the other to find your spice, and when the rack was pulled out it impeded traffic in the kitchen.

So we looked at Loves2cook4six's solution (see linked thread, 3rd post from the top), that Sayde also mentioned, of bottles in a drawer with labels on the top of the bottles. We also thought of something similar to what Northsong mentioned above. DH nixed that, cause he felt we'd never get around to transferring the spices we buy to the other bottles. So another requirement was that spices stay in their "OEM" bottles.

Then we saw Cat_mom's. Eureka! An insert from Rev-a-shelf in a shallow drawer next to the range. The insert holds the bottles at a slant, and everything is instantly visible and accessible. No bending, no squinting, no walking around, no reaching, no moving a bottle to get to another. The insert is a nice wood. And we can keep the spices in their OEM bottles. Although our kitchen is small, we were able to spare a shallow wide drawer dedicated to spices. Eliminating the vertical spice pull-out we had before meant our drawers gained a few more inches. DH comments on how much he loves the spice drawer about once a week.

Cat_mom's is pictured on the linked thread about 1/4 the way down. Then Mysterymachine discussed it with Cat_mom in that thread, and installed something similar too. Hers is pictured about a little more than 1/2 way down the thread. There are plenty of other ideas. It's a really great thread.

Here is a link that might be useful: Really Great Kitchens Forum Thread about Spice Storage

I just wanted to ask - is it okay to store spices so close to the range? I had suggested the spice pull out next to the range, but my DH was adamant that they not be near a heat source because he thought it wasn't a good for spices to have them so near to a heat source. Just checking.

It's think it's nice to have them at eye level - it's good to see what you have and reminds you what you haven't used in a while.

Hi Carrie,
I'm surprised that your DH is so "adamant" about heat, which is debatable (a range normally does not heat up adjacent cabinets very much), but not at all concerned about light? Unless you meant "at eye level in a wall cabinet with wooden doors, not glass doors."

Anyway, having them lay on a spice rack insert in a drawer gives you the same reminder (every time you reach for the salt, you see everything else), and protects them from light. I really don't think heat is a big issue, since they're not going to be directly beside a heat source but rather on the other side of a couple of inches of wood (the cabinet side and drawer).

Thank you everyone so much! I think I will go for the drawer insert alwaysfixin referenced. Pre-fire I kept big cooking utensils there -- may have to move to corner cabinet drawers (I love these, but will be crowded) or move to the counter. I saw a neat utensil holder recently in Wisteria that I liked. I just wish I had room to keep everything off my counter, except Yves, my rooster.

Will have to replace all my spices post-fire. Not even sure where to start...

But thank you so much eveyone for your quick and helpful responses.

Has anyone seen a pull out that allows one to pull out a tray within the spice pullout? my spice pull out is about 8” wide wide and 20 inches deep. If there was a 8” deep x 20” wide pull out I could see everything on the bottom row. i found 10” deep ones, but need 8.