Spice Racks – a guide to purchasing and installing.

Here at www.kitchen-storage.co.uk/spice_racks we offer a comprehensive range of chrome plated and timber spice racks to suit all kitchens and budgets.

These spice racks are used for storing packets and jars of your most used spices, herbs and other flavour enhancing supplements closer to your cooking station. This has the following benefits:

• Spices and herbs are available to hand when cooking so are much more likely to be used, (how many of us have scrabbled around at the back of the cupboard looking for that important ingredient whilst the sauce on the cooker slowly burns!)

• Spices and herbs are simple to see when you are running low so they can be added to the shopping list. (when we first installed ours we found five jars of black pepper corns at the back of the cupboard!)

• They look great especially our range of solid timber 3 and 4 tier racks and demonstrate to your friends that you use a wide variety of spices and herbs when cooking – just like all the top chefs!

Which Spice Rack Do I Need?

This is a question we are regularly asked and the following table summarises the spice racks we have available and how they should be used:

Spice Rack Description	Product Code	Dimensions	Number of Schwartz Jars*	Price Including VAT.
Single Tier 300mm, Linear**	543.12.210	300mm wide, 60mm tall, 55mm depth	6	£6.69
Single Tier 300mm, Mesh**	543.35.202	300mm wide, 60mm tall, 55mm depth	6	£10.64
Single Tier 400mm, Linear**	543.12.211	300mm wide, 60mm tall, 55mm depth	9	£6.90
Three Tier 300mm, Linear**	543.12.230	300mm wide, 352mm tall, 55mm depth	18	£17.70
Three Tier 300mm, Mesh**	543.35.222	300mm wide, 352mm tall, 55mm depth	18	£26.34
Three Tier 400mm, Linear**	543.12.231	400mm wide, 352mm tall, 55mm depth	27	£19.03
Three Tier 400mm, Mesh**	543.35.224	300mm wide, 352mm tall, 55mm depth	27	£26.61
Four Tier 400mm, Linear**	543.11.200	400mm wide, 500mm tall, 55mm depth	36	£12.99

Spice Rack Description	Product Code	Dimensions	Number of Schwartz Jars*	Price Including VAT.
Solid Timber, 4 Tier, 350mm***	Available in Oak, Beech, Walnut, Maple, Cherry, Wenge	350mm wide, 725mm tall, 80mm depth	28	£79.99
Solid Timber, 3 Tier, 350mm***	Available in Oak, Beech, Walnut, Maple, Cherry, Wenge	350mm wide, 580mm tall, 80mm depth	21	£69.99
* Standard Schwartz Spice Jar ** Linear vs Mesh – If you would like to store packets as well as jars Mesh is the ideal solution as the packets will not “fall through” the spaces in the chromed wire. *** The Solid Timber Spice Racks are made to order so if you require a specific size just call 0800 389 9732 to discuss.

If your spice rack is to be placed inside a cupboard door, which is an excellent way of utilising the dead space between the back of the door and the shelving, we would recommend you use on of the wire Spice Racks, these are light yet robust and simple to fix to the inside of the door. Simply measure the width of the door, deduct 100mm, and see what the nearest width of spice rack corresponds with your results.

So for example:

500mm door width – 100mm = 400mm.

All of the above spice racks will fit this door.

We find that increasingly customers are attaching the racks to a wall in the kitchen or screwing them to an end panel.

This has the advantage of enabling you to display the spices. When this method is combined with one of the solid timber racks the results can be stunning. Imagine an 800mm wide solid timber spice rack in Walnut on the wall in your kitchen!

Fitting Spice Racks

It is our intention to produce a short video on this subject but for now hopefully this explanation will suffice.

Tools required,

• Tape measure
• Drill
• 3mm drill bit
• Pencil
• Spirit level
• Masking Tape
• Fixings Pack (included with each rack)

Chrome wire spice racks fitting inside a cupboard door.

• The first point is to ensure that the screws supplied are the correct depth for the surface you are screwing in to – you don’t want the screws to appear on the door front!! Once this has been done you are ready to start.

• Place the rack against the door with an equal distance from either edge to the edge of the rack. You could use the tape measure to do this and your spirit level to check everything is straight.

• Draw a small pencil line on the edge of the rack.

• Once you are happy use masking tape to tape the spice rack against the door.

• Now take your pencil and push it through the screw holes to make a small mark on the door.

• Remove the spice rack and drill small pilot holes in the door. TIP – use a small piece of masking tape to mark on the drill bit the depth you would like to drill to – probably 10mm.

• Place the spice rack back on the door and use the screws provided to secure it and the job is complete.

Solid Timber Spice Racks

All the standard solid timber spice racks are supplied with a paper template which makes the installation very simple. For bespoke sizes follow the same methodology but either make up your own paper template or measure the distance between the fixing points and transfer this measurement to your fixing surface.

• Place the paper template on the wall/door and using a spirit level ensure the top of the paper is straight.

• With your masking tape, tape the template onto the wall. TIP – due to the nature of the fittings on these spice racks the rack will drop approximately 10mm when installed.

• Pilot drill your fixing points through the paper template.

• Place the screws into the wall plugs leaving them approximately 5mm proud of the wall.

• Mount your spice rack onto the wall.

And finally remember that if you have any questions call our experts on 0800 389 9732.

The Charlotte Taylor Range

Fantastic new range of bespoke kitchen accessories manufactured by local craftsman using timber from sustainable sources.

OK sales pitch over, we have been selling the bespoke timber spice racks for some time and they have been hugely popular so we have added a few items such as a Cheese Board, Notice Board, Reminders Board and Key Board. We are showing them in Oak but like the spice racks we can make them to any size and in a choice of timbers from Walnut, Maple, Beech, Wenge and Cherry.

If you have any questions please call 0800 389 9732.

Wordle - word clouds

How cool is this. Create a word cloud from your blog. It looks fantastic.

DIY Warehouse and other exciting developments...

The new year has been fantastic for us with two new websites launched and some great new products added to the ever increasing list.

DIY Warehouse is proving to be a resounding success offering a huge range of products to both the Home Improver and trade customers. And for readers who put up with my ramblings there is a 5% off discount voucher available. The voucher can be used as many times as you like so you can benefit from 5% off your goods everytime you shop up until the end of June 2009. Simply enter the code discount5 into the voucher box when you check out. Happy Shopping!

We have also launched an exciting site selling replacement kitchen doors. www.cupboard-doors.co.uk has ranges to suit all budgets. It is as simple as measuring the doors you currently have, choose a range and select the doors you need or if it is all too much to think about just call us and we can help you choose what you need. How about a kitchen that looks like the one shown for under £600? Yes it can be done depending on the size of your kitchen of course.

Anyway that's all for now and at least the telephone issue is sorted, good old BT!!!

Problems with Telephones

Hi everybody, just a short note to let you know that we are experiencing problems with our phones at the moment.

We will be publishing a temporary number first thing on Monday 9 March but please bear with us as it will only be a single line.

You can email us and we will get back to you very quickly. Email wendy@diyessentials.com or simon@diyessentials.com.

Thanks for your patience.

Bespoke Spice Racks from Kitchen Storage

Once again a first from the DIY Essentials Group. Kitchen Storage has been selling a large range of spice racks for some time and we have been asked repeatedly to produce timber versions that will look great out of the cupboad to be fixed to walls or cabinet end panels.

Well we have done it and comissioned one of the leading bespoke kitchen manufacturers in the country to produce a three tier and four tier version. The off-the shelf version of the three tier is currently on sale and measures:

300mm wide, 580mm tall, 80mm depth and has a 130mm shelf height. 21 standard Schwartz bottle will fit in the rack. Available in Walnut, Oak, Wenge, Cherry and any other timber you can think of!

In fact for the same price we will make these bespoke to any size and in any timber you require, if we think the dimensions are a bit unrealistic we will tell you!

All fittings and instructions are included but there is a 21 day lead time as each one is individually crafted to order.

Oh and before I forget, until the end of February 2009 we have a great offer on the Chrome 4 tier spice rack, Buy 2 and get the 3rd half price.

VAT Savings...

Apologies to all for not posting a lot since July, in fact not posting at all would be more accurate. We have been incredibly busy sourcing new product developing new sites and altering our internal systems. I will have some great announcements to make shortly but thought I would just let you all know what the group is doing with regards to the recent VAT changes.

It is good news as we have decided to pass on the full 2.5% discount to our customers unlike the majority of our competitors!

We are applying the discount at checkout and I thought I would just give a brief explanation of how the discount is calculated:

How does this affect you?

All the prices currently displayed online include VAT at 17.5%. However these prices will be discounted at the checkout to be equivalent to the new 15% VAT prices. This means a discount of 2.13% on the displayed price.

Why is this discount 2.13% and not 2.5%?

The example below illustrates how the 2.13% discount is calculated:

Current ticket price includes VAT at 17.5%
On a product that sells for £100 the EX VAT price is £85.11
To calculate the new price including EX VAT at 15% we must add 15% to the EX VAT price of £85.11, which equals £97.87.

Anyway hope that is clear any questions please call us on 0800 389 9732