Lego Storage Ideas

[nelle]

Can anyone tell me or show me your lego storage system?? My DS's both got more legos for christmas and now they are all over the place. Since they are home this week nows the time to organize.
Do you all use clear plastic bins? Shelves? Boxes? All over the place( our current method)? What do you all do to control the lego mess???

 

[zoemurr]

'cause most of ours are in a HUGE rubbermaid bin all mixed together. My DS doesn't really like sets and would prefer to make his own creations.

That being said, he hates to break anything . So, we have an inexpensive bookshelf in the LR that he uses to display everything.

Best advice that I have read is to put the directions in sleeves in a notebook to preserve them.

Any sets we have we just put in a ziplock bag and place back in the box for another time.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

Our current method is all over the place too!

I have tried bins and shelves, but they all end up all over the place anyways. We have a great big bin that we throw everything in when we get serious about clean up, but all our sets are mixed together anyways.

 

[lovesmurfs]

Out of the Lego stage, thank heavens. We used a combination of plastic bins and the mongo-sized ziploc bags.

For kits, we'd get the large (2 1/2 gallon? They have only about 10 in a box) Ziploc bags (with a real zipper that the kids could handle) and put the pieces in there with the instructions.

For the miscellaneous messy ones, yes, a single storage bin. Everytime I found a piece around the house, it would be thrown in the big bin.

Best wishes.

 

[java]

I have noticed that Lego is starting to sell more storage bins- so far I have not seen one that is great yet- but they do have the lego head sifter and some other funny ones.

Right now we have 2 huge rubbermade CLEAR bins. To see what you are digging for.

We once sorted by color and size and that lasted about 10 minutes of being together. We gave it all up to the Lego Gods.

 

[Promomx2]

Ds is 15 and still brings out his legos every once in a while. I've tried everything and what is the best for him is a cheap plastic self drawer unit from walmart. It has rollers so he can roll it in the corner when he's not using it and the drawers come out.

 

[DaniB]

cheap plastic self drawer unit from walmart. It has rollers so he can roll it in the corner when he's not using it and the drawers come out.

This is what we have been using for the past 2 years. Originally it worked well. 6 drawers. The bottom drawer was dedicated to "building blocks & loose/extra pieces", and the rest of the drawers to sets. I taped a picture of each set to their corresponding drawer.

Now however, there are way more sets than drawers! Everything's mis-mashed together, and it's hard trying to find all the pieces to put something together. A few months ago I was trying to put together my son's airplane and wasn't able to complete it...

Today he & I put together his new Lego "lego" truck. In a few days, my daughter wants help putting together her new winter bakery set.

I keep looking everywhere for a better storage system!!!!

 

[mickeymaker2003]

Mine are all in ziploc bags that are labeled with the name of each set. The directions are all in one plastic storage container so they don't get smushed. Pieces that don't have specific sets are in several other bags.

 

[apnep]

I've tried organizing DS7's Legos so many times, but like all the previous posters, the stuff just ends up al over the floor. I'd LOVE his room to look organized like the Lego store, but that's just not happening! He's so creative with those things though. I think he's gonna be my builder or architect. It's amazing to see the stuff he comes up with!

 

[DVCBELLE]

We bought the lego storage bins..I got mine at Meijer but I think I have seen them at Walmart as well.

My son loves them - they come in many different sizes including a rolling cart. We don't sort by set so eerything is just mashed together - he prefers to just build for fun than the sets.

 

[ilovejack02]

So far the best I have done is putting them in a storage box/storage ottomon that doubles as his seat to sit at his lego table. . Turning the Thomas the Train table into a lego table was a HUGE help. He now creates at the table and sits on his ottoman.Every things stays on table for the most part and the ottoman looks pretty good in my den , it is brown faux seude. We don't keep sets together for very long around here, maybe a month and then he wants to create something else . I don't worry about keep separate .

 

[indimom]

For general lego storage.
This is just a small selection of the total lego stash.
The carts have wheels so they are easy to move around or the drawers can be removed if they just want one set or type.
I have a day care so I keep all different sizes and types.

For showing off DS's favorites/special creations.
The high shelves keep little ones from taking them apart.

We also keep all directions in a binder so he can recreate vehicles or sets that have gone into bulk bins.

 

[DawnM]

I have heard these are good if you don't have too many:

http://www.box4blox.com/

We actually have a lego room! Well, it used to be called the bonus room, but it is so overtaken with legos that we call it the lego room.

We are still working on organizing, so this is a topic of interest.

Here are some things I have been looking at.


http://www.wikihow.com/Sort-and-Store-LEGO-Toys

http://www.flickr.com/groups/1043272@N22/pool/

http://www.carneycastle.com/Storage/index.htm



Dawn

 

[MerryPoppins]

Storage: large bins. For building: a large, flat baby bathtub under the bed. Pieces could be poured into the tub for digging/searching. Cleanup much easier.

 

[labdogs42]

I use the clear Sterilite bins. I like the bathtub idea for dumping. I'm thinking an underbed box would be good for a "dump zone" too. I found out that you can get the directions for all the sets online, so I don't keep the directions anymore. DS never seems to want to "rebuild" anything so far anyway. Once it falls apart, it gets broken up and turned into other creations. I'm going to get him a small set of drawers to sort some of the smaller pieces into. We have a box4blox that we use mostly for sorting parts. We dump a bin in and shake it to sort them, then we dump the four layers into four bins based on size. It helps when trying to make a project and you need a certain size piece. I'm always looking for more Lego storage ideas. My kid is only 5.5 and we're already deep into the Lego craze!

 

[EKW]

This is about to evolve at my house again...For the past three years my son has had all of his in a 2' x 3' Sterlite box. Now he has too many for that to work well.

I am going to go to the craft store and buy one of those rolly dresser carts that are for crafting...the drawers are only about 2" deep. Then I'm going to help him sort his legos. I know they won't STAY sorted, but I can at least start them that way.

Just waiting for the 40% off coupons....

 

[sksjasams]

We use clear rubbermaid bins, not too deep, but not as long as under the bed boxes either. I was buying all the same kind 23x17x9 and 23x17x6 (until they stopped making them), so they would stack nicely.

MY DS12 leaves all his sets assembled, and lays them in the bins, sorted by theme. He just gets the bins out that he wants when he wants to play (or battle, since most of his sets are star wars).

We use accordian folders to store instruction booklets.

 

[Chelley00]

For general lego storage.
This is just a small selection of the total lego stash.
The carts have wheels so they are easy to move around or the drawers can be removed if they just want one set or type.

This is what we use too, only ours is a 3 drawer. The bottom big drawer is for the loose Legos. The top 2 smaller drawers are where we put the sets, in Ziploc bags with the instructions.

 

[hulagirl87]

DH tells me stories about how when he was little he used to have his legos in a little red suitcase. That way he could carry them wherever he went. It probably won't help in this situation, but I just enjoy that story.

 

[DisneyScraps]

I bought my DD a Nilo play table. It's got a lip on all sides high enough that they never end up on the floor. This was the only place she was allowed to play with them. They all just stayed loose on the table and rarely ended up on the floor. It's an expensive solution but it was so worth the money because she had a designated place for them and they never ended up everywhere.

Lisa