I ♥ The Container Store

Hey guys! So last week I went on an exciting little road trip to check out The Container Store for the very first time. I had heard people rave about that place over and over and I wanted to see for myself what all the hype was about! I went online to see if there were any Container Stores in NJ and sure enough there were two, but they were pretty far away which is why I never came across them. The one store was an hour and fifteen minutes to the south and the other was fifty minutes up north so I decided it was worth the trip and headed north with two friends. Since we went during the week there was no traffic and we made a nice little road trip out of it, stopping for lunch on the way back.

Basically, the store is incredible. It was everything I expected and more! They literally have every type of container and organizer you could want and then some. We joked that the store sells "everything you never knew you needed" because as you're walking the aisles you're continually thinking how useful it all is!
It took great restraint to only leave the store with four items but since I planned ahead and checked out the store online ahead of time I was much less tempted to make those impulse purchases. Tempted still, oh yes, but having a list made me much more accountable! Since I've been really focused on our kitchen lately and trying to make it as organized and functional as possible that is where I spent the bulk of my time and budget. Best of all, each of the four items I purchased were under $18 each! So for those thinking TCS is just too expensive, I'm here to say it's not and you can find some great deals!
Let's jump right in. The first item I picked up was this under-the-shelf coffee pod organizer and it is just perfect for organizing the extra Nespresso pods we have since we buy them in bulk on Amazon.

This particular shelf is made for K cups and there is a spot in the front of the shelf for displaying which flavor you are storing, as shown below:

via
But since we have a Nespresso machine and not a Keurig I didn't need the display space so I simply took a business card sized magnet and peeled off the logo, replacing it with a few strips of washi tape to match the rest of my labels and voila! It's completely removable since it's simply a magnet but helps to keep the Nespresso pods from falling through the hole.

The shelf is now hanging out in our baking cabinet, located right above our coffee station, and fit nicely right above our mixer. I did have to move my top shelf up one notch to allow it to fit but since there's not much up there it was no problem at all.

Next up I planned ahead and grabbed this large two drawer organizer to use under our kitchen sink. The frame and drawers are very sturdy and are perfect for corralling smaller items that tend to get lost under the sink.

I'm working towards making this under the sink space more functional and this is just one more step in the right direction.

Moving on to my junk drawer I replaced the dollar store cutlery tray that used to be there with this much more functional drawer organizer with a sliding top tray that gives me even more storage space.

The cutlery tray was fine for the time being and hey, it was only a buck, but the items were sliding between the sections and driving me crazy. Now everything has its own compartment.

And last but not least I grabbed this 18-compartment organizer because I want to organize all the screws and anchors and nuts and bolts that are currently stored all over the house into one single container for easy access. Yes it is going to be a pain but once it's done it will be so nice to only have to go to one spot when we need something and not have to check here, there, and everywhere.

If you want to watch the corresponding video for my little road trip check it out

here on YouTube!