Storage solutions

I finished the kitchen drawer project finally yesterday - it took me longer than I thought because other things on my schedule got in my way. I used a combination of Ikea, Crate and Barrel and The Container Store - three of my favorite places! This is not going to be the most exciting post (although there is a funny story); I thought I would show you my process:

THE SPICE DRAWER:

I used three Ikea inserts @ $3.99 each:

Rationell Variera Insert for spice jars - Ikea

And with very little effort, turned this:

Into this:

Nice and neat. Super easy and very inexpensive. At first I thought it might be nice to have the spices on a rack that angled the bottles so I purchased one of these:

Linus in-drawer spice rack - The Container Store

I liked that the bottles were angled but only one fit in the drawer and I didn't like that it didn't hold very many bottles:

The inexpensive Ikea inserts worked much better:

THE SILVERWARE DRAWER:

The silverware drawer is a nice large drawer (33" wide) and it needed to store silverware, knives and some miscellaneous utensils. I knew that I wanted bamboo drawers and was hoping to find an expandable drawer to be able to achieve a custom fit. I found what I wanted at Crate and Barrel. I looked at the cutlery tray first:

Expandable Bamboo Flatware Tray - Crate and Barrel

It was 3" smaller and 1/2" shorter than the gadget tray so I decided to go with the larger tray. 

Expandable Bamboo Gadget Tray - Crate and Barrel

I added a knife block:

Wave Knife Tray - The Container Store

And turned this:

Into this:

I love how neat everything looks. The knife block is my favorite. I used the client's existing white tray to store her miscellaneous items like cheese spreaders and baby spoons - things she doesn't use on a day-to-day basis and put the box that stores her chopsticks on top. 

Do you want to hear something funny? I did not realize that I purchased a "gadget" tray instead of a cutlery tray until I started posting the photos on the blog and pulled up the two different Crate and Barrel trays to reference. I guess I was just thinking "tray" not necessarily "cutlery" tray. I bought the one I did because it was larger, not realizing that it was not designed for cutlery per se. So silly. After realizing my "mistake" and considering switching them out, I decided I would keep everything the way it is; I like the way the tray fits the drawer so nicely with the extra length. Always something to laugh about though, right?

And while I was shopping at Crate and Barrel I found this in their sale area:

It is going in my sister's office. One was $50.00 and the other $25.00. A coat of fresh paint and a couple of little embellishments should make this a great "must needed" storage solution for her!