Turn A Dollar Tree Cooling Rack Into A Storage Solution To Stay Organized

If you're a budget-minded home baker, then you know all about tapping the Dollar Tree when you need supplies like cooling racks. This simple piece of cooking equipment moves air underneath your baked goods like nobody's business, cooling your cookies and muffins evenly and even amping up the flavor factor in the process. What you may not know is that the same metal rack can be used in the pre-cooking stages as a holder of spices and recipes, kitchen soap bottles, and even snacks. It just needs to be restructured to give it a new identity and function.

The foundational Dollar Tree piece for this DIY is the 10-inch-by-16-inch Cooking Concepts Metal Cooling Rack. How many you'll need depends on your storage needs. If the job is small, maybe one repurposed cooking rack will be enough to keep all your items organized. If your stockpile of stuff is bursting out of its current container, you'll need a couple of them. Fortunately, the cost of the baking rack is minimal: A single one sets you back a buck-twenty-five (plus tax if you live in a state that charges it).

Aside from the cooling racks, you may need some additional supplies. These could include DT metal clips, zip ties, and floral wire. Spray paint and a glue gun may also come in handy. Finally, get out your pliers. You'll be bending the cooking rack into a new shape, and while it's possible that it will be easy enough to do this by hand, the pliers will be around if you need them.

To make an all-purpose shelf from the Dollar Tree cooling rack, you'll need to work with it horizontally. In this orientation, you'll have about 10 or 12 long wires running in the side-to-side direction. Four bars cross those bars. You'll bend the last four wires 90 degrees and then bend the next three or four wires 90 degrees in the same direction. These bends create a trough-shaped shelf. You can close the ends of the trough up by wrapping some floral wire around the open portions of the rack. If you've done this correctly, you'll have a "fence" on each end of the shelf. This addition prevents items from sliding off. 

Next, hang two Tool Bench Plastic Removable Adhesive Hooks on the wall. They should be less than 16 inches apart. That's the width of the re-imagined rack. Attach the shelf to the hooks. Next, stash it near the stove to keep your kitchen spices organized. If you cook with a lot of herbs and spices, you may need to make a couple of repurposed racks to accommodate all of those bottles of flavor enhancers. 

And here's another kitchen hack to create more storage. Hang the rack on the wall beside the sink. Fill it with sponges and scrubber brushes. Or style the front of your fridge with the shelf. Just attach two Jot Magnetic Hooks to the front of the icebox to give the cooling rack shelf a place to hang. Store small snacks in it, like fruit roll-ups and wrapped meat sticks, to keep munchies within easy reach.

This Dollar Tree cooling-rack-turned shelf is already pretty handy as is. However, as with any satisfying DT DIY, there's always room for improvement. First up? Add clips to the shelf. For example, hot glue a few Dollar Tree Jot Black Binder Clips or a handful of Crafter's Square Wooden Clothespins to the front of the wire rack spice rack. The added clips give you a place to hold your recipe cards or sticky notes. 

That said, adding extras, like clips, zip ties, and wire, can make the storage shelf look thrown-together. Applying a couple of coats of spray paint gives your DIYs a more cohesive look, particularly if you've attached disparate items to them. The unifying hue gives the DIY visual cohesion and creates the impression that all the glued-on pieces were part of the original design.

Finally, lest you believe this DIY is only good in the kitchen, think again. Use it as your by-the-door mail holder. To make it really useful, glue two or three clips on the front and attach some small Dollar Tree Garden Collection Metal Garden Hooks to the bottom of it. Then, use the clips to hold outgoing mail or return-to-sender letters. The S-hooks from the garden collection are great for holding your car and house keys. Make a similar set-up for the bathroom. In the basket portion of the rack, you'll stash boxes of bar soap and folded washcloths instead. And the S-hooks on the bottom? They're great for keeping items like bracelets and cloth headbands organized.