A Capitol Spice Box

There are lots of fancy ways to organize one's spices and I have tried many of them: shelves, uniform glass bottles with little labels, swiveling racks, etc. But, I always come back to the wooden soap box that came out of my grandfather's childhood barn in Gardner, Maine. 

For a long while, probably more than 10 years, every time I would grab for a spice, I would grumble to myself that "this arrangement just isn't working!" - spices stacked on top of each other, unable to see the labels, etc. It can take several tries before one finds the desired spice. During one of these grumbles, I remarked to Neil that I needed a different system. He remarked that it would be a tragedy to put this old box out-of-use. 

I gave it some thought and I couldn't agree more. This old, wooden soap box traveled from the barn of the Perkins' family farm to join our family and deserves to be put to good use. Now, it is. Well, it always was, but now it is appreciated as well. Today, every time that I pull out the old soap box, I think, Come here, little wooden box and let's take a look. This was in Grampy's barn and now it's here with me, holding our spices. Well, isn't that the grandest thing, indeed. It's a wonderful weekly reminder of my personal and family history.

The soap box. This company still exists, but now goes by the name of Capital Soap Products and is located in  Clifton, NJ. There is no website, however, for this company.

The soap box, filled with our spices.

Comments

  1. Kathy in MDJanuary 20, 2013 at 8:55 PM

    It is beautiful. I recommend writing the spices with permanent marker on the tops.

    ReplyDelete
  2. HeatherJanuary 22, 2013 at 11:01 AM

    I love this post!

    ReplyDelete

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