More is More

A few weeks ago we bought a Keurig Coffee Maker.  My first experience with a Keurig was when I visited my wonderful friend Sharon in Texas a few years ago.  The Keurig was an amazing thing, a wonder to behold.  However when I got home and told the Rocket Scientist about it, he was not convinced.  To make matters worse, a year or so later we stayed at a B&B with a Keurig in the hallway and he had a bad experience with it (I won’t go into all the ugly details.)  So it seemed a Keurig was not in my future.

At Christmas, we bought Keurigs as gifts for my parents and for our niece and her husband.  I would live vicariously through them.  I was quite sure that the Rocket Scientist was not going to budge on the Keurig issue, which was really kind of odd since he’s generally a pretty agreeable guy.  But you know, you just don’t mess with a man’s coffee!  Then I started working at church and found that Pastor Jeff has a Keurig in his office.  And I was invited to use it any time I wanted…well, any time he did not have his door closed for sermon study.  I began to take careful note of his schedule and study habits, so I could schedule coffee access around them.  I discovered that it is best to arrive a couple of minutes early to staff meetings to avoid the Keurig traffic jam.  And apparantly I began to talk at home about the Keurig…A LOT…because one day the Rocket Scientist uttered those six wonderful words, “Go ahead and get a Keurig.”  *GRIN*  We went straight to Costco the next day! (After I researched for the best deal of course.  😉 )

Well, as giddy as I was about my new incredible machine,  the Keurig came with a new set of problems…storage problems.  What on earth to do with all those little K-cups?  There was the variety pack of 60 that came with the machine, then there was the huge box of Donut House we went back to Costco for (160 of them!), and the several boxes I ordered from Amazon of decafs and the boxes of 18 I got at Target of my two personal favorites – Green Mountain Nantucket Blend and Breakfast Blend.  Acck the stuff was overtaking my laundry room!

The first order of business was to make room in the cabinet where my Yuban has always been kept.  (And I do mean ALWAYS!)  I stacked everything in there and it was ok, but I really wanted a better system.

Next I headed to…where else?…Pinterest to get ideas on K-cup storage.  I saw lots of things I liked (and I pinned and pinned and pinned), but most wouldn’t fit in my 1948 kitchen cupboards. Finally I came across the idea of using Medium Storage Bins from Staples which was originally posted on the blog Whistle While You Work. Turns out these are the perfect size for my cabinets.  They come in black or clear and I opted for the clear.  You can see the black in the original linked blog post.

Ah!  So much better!  I discovered that one bin will hold about 26 K-cups if you put them in willy-nilly or 18 if you are really anal and want them stacked just so.  The top bin will hold a little more.  There’s a  spot for a label on the front of each bin.  For some of them I cut out the variety name from the box and for some I used my P-touch label maker.  Here are a couple views of them on the counter, just so you can get a better picture of what they look like.

And a side view:

For easy access, we keep a basket right next to the Keurig filled with the varieties we use most for our morning coffee.

For now I have the majority of decaf K-Cups in a plastic lidded box on the top shelf of my cabinet.  I haven’t decided if I want to get the Staples bins for those or not.  We will mostly use those when we have company over in the evening, so I don’t feel like they need to be in easy reach.  I do have French Vanilla Decaf in one of the bins, since it’s my favorite and the one I would most likely reach for in the evening.

One more tip on the bins – they are on-line only, not carried in the stores.  We have a Staples very close to us and I excitedly ran over there to purchase the bins and was bummed out to not find them there.  The employees are super helpful at that store and Steven looked up the item for me and told me he could have it delivered to the store the next day with NO shipping charge!  The bins are $4.79 each, but just the right storage solution is priceless!

After my extensive search, I wanted to post this in case it might help someone else out there in the midst of a K-cup struggle!  There are tons of options.  If you’d like to see some different ideas check out my K-Cups Pinterest Board.  Maybe you’ll find just the solution you need.  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.