Sorting Lego by colour

[ThePowerball]

I am considering sorting my DCs very considerable Lego collection into colours. At the moment it's all just dumped into drawers. There are 8 drawers so they could be separate.

It will hopefully help then rebuild sets?

Has anyone done this. Is it just a phenomenal waste of time? I am realistic that I'll end up doing 90% of the sorting.....

It's a phenomenal waste of time, sorry. Tried it, lasts until next time it's used.

I’ve done it, and then done it again multiple times because NOONE ELSE PUTS IT BACK IN THE RIGHT BOXES. Sorry, I’ll stop shouting now.

Yup. Tried sorting by colour. Then by size/shape etc - as soon as anyone builds anything the whole lot gets muddled as they won’t put it back right. I think that stuff works for anal adult builders, but for regular kids I’d advise one of those drawstring playmats to tip it all out onto to save digging around. Then it’s all spread out and easy to find what you need.

Don’t bother by colour, it doesn’t make it much easier to find the piece you need and you’ll end up with a massive box of grey pieces. Ours is sorted by type (flat plates, singles, blocks etc) but I agree no one but me bothers to sort it. The trick is to build it and then hide it so no one can take it to bits again!

I have to agree with everyone else. Phenomenal waste of time.

We sort roughly by type, rather than colour. It's much easier to swap out a brick with a different colour if you can't find the right piece for a set. We have bricks, slopes, flat plates, vehicles, house and people, technic, and Ninjago drawers. It's a good compromise between the kids being able to tidy them up into the right place and ease of finding specific pieces.

We have the Lego storage boxes and sort by colour. I have one "play" box that's bits mixed up and just use the colour boxes for sets. But we've 40 years worth of Lego that goes up most of a wall in my son's bedroom. The everyday playing stuff it really isn't worth sorting.

It will hopefully help then rebuild sets?

I don't see how - I would keep the pieces from each set together with the instructions.

Otherwise you can't get a set out and go and build it in the middle of the room or out in the garden - you're anchored to the chest of drawers.

We do have a few big boxes of mixed Lego sorted by theme (technics, elves, medieval, mindstorms, etc) though.

We used to sort by colour but there's so much of it, it's now sorted by type and things are much easier to find. It depends how much of it you have - I wouldn't have bought so much in hindsight, it takes up a huge amount of space!

Ds did this (with dhs help one rainy weekend!) when he was about 8. He absolutely loved having it stored this way and it remained like this until, sniff, he outgrew it and we packed it all away.
It's now packed away in a big trunk, still colour coded!!!

We tried sorting by colour, it was a nightmare trying to find the bits you need to rebuild. So now we sort by set into those tough bags (like plastic wallets but with netting to make them...well... tough) seems to work well.

Ideally you’d sort it by type first, as it’s easier to find a red 2x4 brick in amongst a load of other different coloured 2x4s than it is amongst a load of other red bricks. But really level of sorting is only for people who have space for a dedicated Lego room with loads of massive cabinets full of tiny wee drawers....

I fantasise about sorting my son’s collection but realistically he’d mess it up again within a day or so.

Ours is sorted by type, most of it is in a massive really useful box with two insert trays. The basic bricks 2x2, 2x3, 2x4 are all in another box together.

It took hours when I first did it, but it is now a thing of beauty. I am one of those that keeps all the sets in their original boxes though.

Massive faff and waste of time. We just keep ours in a huge box that lives under the dining room table.

We did and put them into 1000ml Chinese take out tubs, bought 50 of them for a tenner on eBay.

DD much prefers playing with her lego now as she can find the pieces she wants without having to take through thousands of other bits!

We are a household of Lego lovers.
I have spent £1000's over the years and spent quite a bit in the last few weeks to keep the kids entertained.
I do not sort into colours but I do spend quite a bit of time breaking down sets to re sell on eBay. The money is then re invested into more Lego. We keep all the boxes and guide books and when the kids lose interest I sell them on. The good thing about Lego is they hold their value well and their are millions of Lego fans out their. Their have been many times I have sold a Lego set for more then I actually paid for it.

Just to sort/arrange for the kids to mess back up is not worth your time sorry!

Why not. Nothing else to do. Do it for theraputic reasons if not for anything else.

Will help to rebuild sets from original instructions however never met anyone whos actually done this

Sort it by type, it's better.
DH and I clash over this because he wants to store each set in a ziplock bag in its original box, and play with them all separately. My almost 4yo has made so many amazing creative inventions out of a jumble of bits from different sets, and to me that's the joy of lego, not following carefully prescribed instructions.
I would prefer it if Lego pieces weren't scattered over the floor of almost every room of the house though.

Did this over Easter as a precursor to trying to recreate the Simpsons house which was built and then taken apart a few years ago. Took 4 full days to sort out. After that we had no desire to build anything, let alone the house!

I think it depends how likely your kids are to keep it sorted? My DS fooled me by being really enthusiastic about helping sort and even made labels for the drawers to show which colour went in each. But only a few weeks later it was all jumbled up again!

It's quite relaxing in a mindfulness type of way - until you discover there are 4 different types of grey and you start screaming "Grey grey fricking grey".
Also when rebuilding you will always be missing a few bits. Always.
(official Adult Fan Of Lego here)

Get the ikea giant sandwich bags. Big enough for the booklet and all the bricks for that set. Bagged sets can go into a drawer.

Have a drawer or box for the flat plates. Any flat plate bigger than 4x4 can go in here.

Wheels, windows, doors, flowers etc can then go in one.

Then one for all the loose bricks.

Sorting by colour is my kids of fun. But it doesn't last. And the pain of seeing them mixed again just isn't worth it.

My husband describes his mother as "the sort of person who sorts Lego by colour".
It isn't intended as a compliment.

Our Lego is all sorted by colour. It works well because my son likes things neat and tidy so when things get taken apart they get put back in the boxes. He inherited DH's huge collection from his childhood and my MIL tells me that DH was the same, always liked everything sorted by colour.