Hmm.... I do love my pull out spice rack... it sits next to my stove & is really useful. I think you need to evaluate all of your drawer space to answer that question... do you only have that single set of drawers? Any other single drawers?

Good luck.

That depends, what other drawer widths do you have? If you have very few 24" or larger, probably not. Do you have sufficient pots & pan storage? Again, if not, then probably you shouldn't sacrifice the width.

To give you "educated" advice, we need to know what we're dealing with. Do you have a layout w/drawer widths labeled that we could look at? (Take a digital pic and post it if you do.) If not, can you describe your kitchen for us...for each cabinet run, tell us what's on the run from either left to right or right to left, include appliances and doors & windows as well. Upper cabinets might be a good idea too...

I am actually replacing my old cabinets with new cabinets and not changing the layout. So the bank of drawers has been there but I want to bring my spices from the pantry across the room close to the stove. I was either going to put them in an upper cabinet and find a new space for some dishware or put in the pull out. Right now I have my silverware and knives in one drawer, towels in the second, paperware and tinfoil etc in the third, and misc in the bottom.

I have two 3 inch spice pullouts on either side of my sink. I love them. One of them I actually use as first aid and medicines (my kids are older) and the other one is for spices.

I also think large drawers are important too. If you have other equally convenient places to put your spices, then I would go with the larger drawer IF you need the space. I don't really have wall cabinets so I needed somewhere to put the spices. If I had wall cabs, I may have gotten the spice racks on the door or drawer racks.

I really like the pullout for taller things like oil, vinegar, etc. I actually have my spices in a drawer - like that too. It really does depend on whether you can have everything in the optimal location without the pullout and whether you have enough drawer space if you make them smaller.

I am a short person and cannot image going back to life with out my pullout spice drawer. Of course I have 8 other drawers so there is plenty of room for my four pull outs.For a shorter person the pullouts really put hard to reach idems within easy reach.No more climbing and digging needed trying to find something small in upper cabnets. I now can reserve my upper cabnets for easyer to grab things like dishs.

If you have the wider drawers, would you be able to dedicate a shallow drawer in the top or second tier for a spice drawer (all or part of one)? I have 110 bottles standing upright in a 24" drawer, and most folks could do fewer and have some room for utensils or other storage too.

We put ours in instead of a 3" filler. We like it, but for us, it's not big enough, so we have some spices in that, and some in a drawer. Maybe in a couple of years, I will know which spices are where.

How often do you throw away your old spices? Heat really destroys subtle flavors and storing them next to the stove is not the best idea. I tried having my spice rack next to the oven and it was convenient but I could taste the flavor deteriorating. Most (but not all) of my friends and family could tell there was a difference taste in the cooked food.

Be honest with yourself about how sensitive you are to taste before making a decision. If you have spices in your cabinet that are a few years old and you still use them - you probably wont notice any difference regardless of where you store them.

I store them in a drawer like lascatx. I used mailing labels to print spice names that I place on top of the jars to make them easier to find.

For those of you who keep spices in a base cabinet pullout, does getting the spices off the bottom shelf require a lot of stooping to read the labels? I am especially worried about that for 6'4" DH. So I am thinking spices for us have to go in an uper cabinet, but not so high I (5'4") can't reach them. I just don't know if an upper cabinet implies a lazy susan, rack on door, step insert, or pullout.

For oils, etc. I love the base pullout idea. Can't wait to get mine.

dcwesley - yes, what you describe would be a problem in my opinion. The items I have in the top of my pullout I can tell what they are at a glance from above by the look of the bottle and the general location as I keep oil together, vinegar, etc. On the bottom shelf I do have to bend completely down to even see what's down there. The bottom of the pullout is one of the least optimal storage locations in my opinion - I put stuff there that I don't use very often. My pullout has another shelf for the very top that would have been for short spice bottles. That would have made it more difficult to see what was in the second shelf also. I didn't use the top shelf for that reason and also because my bottles were too tall.

With my spice pullout, it holds spices only one bottle deep. We alphebetize the spices and orientate the bottles so the labels all face the range side. It's easy to see which bottle is which without bending. Of course you do have to bend to reach the bottle, but it's not like you're sqatting on the floor shuffling through bottles. You just have to put the time into organizing once, after that, just but the bottle back in the space it left.