Lego storage for a small room

[muldersspeedos]

What do you use? Dc is amassing a large Lego collection with more on the way but has a small room. Are the official Lego storage cubes good? We keep things in a big cardboard Lego classic box segregated into colours and put in ziplock bags but now have far too much. Why Lego don't sell sets in decent boxes that reseal I'll never know but it does my head in considering the price. He has a playmat/storage bag but I'd like to keep things more separate.

@Woeismethischristmas do you have a link please?

@Yuledo

We just used different size plastic storage boxes with lids. They then stacked in his wardrobe.

We have similar. Stacking clear plastic lidded crates. We have a couple of smaller ones with just minifigs in, one with small pieces in - these always fall to the bottom of any box, and you don't want to be rummaging through a big box with bigger bricks in for tiny bits - one with baseplates in, one with doors/windows/architectural detail in. (We have a LOT of Lego...)

We've also kept all the instruction booklets for models, so they can be made again but otherwise their pieces can go into the crates.

We used to have Kallax for toy storage, we found the drawer runners weren't particularly strong with heavy stuff in the tubs. The space on top was great though.

We have those sets of rainbow drawers from Hobbycraft and sorted bricks by the colour. It worked when they were younger and had city sets.

Now the youngest likes star wars and Ninjago sets it is a bit harder but we got the clear make up drawers a pp posted for all the little bits....

I have more than two dozen of these (I've a large collection, one of these days I'll mount them on drawer runners).
www.therange.co.uk/diy/tool-storage/organisers-cases-and-shelving/xl-organiser

Parts sorted first into shape/size, then if there are a large number into colour.

Don't mix different parts of the same colour, nothing worse than trying to find a particular small yellow part in a sea of other yellow parts. Much easier to spot the yellow one in a tub of a given shape of part.

I don't get the obsession with keeping disassembled sets together, that just stifles creativity.

@FixItUpChappie

I did something similar to the picture below which I got off Pinterest and it's totally revolutionized my sons small room - we used two IKEA cube shelves (kallax) and bought two desk tops that run the entire length of his room seamlessly. It was really not expensive and has added great storage in addition to a place for him to work and store items off the floor.

Similar to this but used as a room divider so we added a back to one side of the trofast. Shallow drawers divided by colour etc

My 3 children all use Lego differently (& separately) so you might want to consider how your child plays & work from there.
1 builds sets & uses as small world play, takes set down, builds again - mostly needs shelf space for storing built models & some smaller boxes for any sets that have extra parts not in use (like 3in1 sets)
1 creates huge dramatic play on the floor, gets someone else to do set building but likes to build amazing stuff from random blocks - mostly needs floor (!) & colour sorted block storage. (& shelf space for the built but not currently part of the game dragons models)
1 plays like first but builds then destroys set, mixing it in with all the other Lego before declaring a week later that they want to rebuild & hunt through trays for parts - needs sorted by colour, boxes for keeping destroyed sets in the hope of eventually training her & loads of surface/display space

Trofast sorted by shape/type rather than colour

Oh dear Lord this is more complex than I thought! I am very particular and would prefer to keep all sets in their original boxes if Lego allowed people to do that instead of using flimsy boxes that tiny parts fall out of. We have almost finished the elf clubhouse and I think I've enjoyed it more than ds. DS is the master of imaginative building. I'm good at following instructions and completely lack imagination when it comes to Lego. Currently we sort by colour for the classic box and then the smaller sets are in their boxes in ziplock bags. Occasionally I spend ages resorting when he's mixed them up. He needs a new bed so I think one I can store things under is the way to go.

My DS has masses of lego sets and has the box room, we put an IKEA Kalax 2x4 horizontally with boxes on the landing and put all his toys/lego there. He can take box into his room and play then return it at night. Room on top to store half finished projects

We have lots of lego, stored in one big container. Really can't see any desire in separating. My dc usually builds the kit once or twice, then prefers to use their imagination. We pour it all out, and scoop it back in together when finished. I have kept all the building guides in a zip lock bag in case they are built again. Do you have to sort and separate after each time of use? Seems a total unnecessary chore and takes the fun out. Our lego men had skateboards for 'bodies' today as well as father christmas hats and dc played and laughed for ages. Not the same as following an kit build each time. Serves it purpose I understand, but got to be room for creativity surely.

• @FixItUpChappie that picture looks great. When you did similar with your son's room did you use eg wood desktops (what material was easy to fit together?).*

We just bought 2 IKEA desk tops - ours were similar to the one below in rather a nice blue-grey. We put one cantered on top of each kallax and my husband attached them underneath with a metal piece

This is not a Aibu

We use the drawstring bag that a pp mentioned, it's great for us because we can take it to my parents, we take it camping, but also when over tied you can literally shove it anywhere

How about some of these, sort by colour?

My now teen son adored Lego & we amassed literally tonnes of the stuff over the years.

We started with big, plastic, lidded boxes that either went under the bed or at least stacked in a corner. At one point we had some of those square IKEA storage units with pull out boxes/baskets - they hold a surprising amount!

At first, we tried to keep the sets separate but it all eventually ended up together. I would recommend keeping all of the instruction books though - we managed to sort out, bag up & sell on some of the popular sets when he outgrew them! (Branded sets like Minecraft, Bionicles, Avengers, Batman, etc are very popular on the 2nd hand market!)

Be prepared for the years of dusting around completed models on display all over your house!! 🤣 Ah, I sort of miss those days!!

www.argos.co.uk/product/6007320

This is really useful, the boxes come off for play and you can throw everything in and put them back afterwards!

We have most of our Lego in small sorted drawers which is good for building from instructions or for designing your own projects. I think our best ones are the clear A4 drawer boxes with lids that we use for Lego Boost though. The bigger drawers are easier for rummaging and quicker to put away than smaller drawers with more specific categories.
Definitely sort by type rather than colour. If you’re looking for eg a red 2x2 brick, your eyes are much better trained to find the red one among other colours than a 2x2 shape in a sea of red. It also easier to make do with a piece that’s the right shape but the wrong colour if sorted by shape.

We use the giant Lego bricks.

We buy them in bundles from this online shop

We tried mixing all together but it was too much for my kids to deal with. We now have have plastic set of drawers with made models to keep stored in the top drawer. Everything else is stored by colour and kept in tubs that stack within the drawers. We have also kept all instructions which is handy for rebuilding when things break during play

Trofast here. We have 2 screwed together to form a square table.

We also have a LOT of kallax and I'm about to get some on the inserts with glass doors for displaying some of their big, fancy models. A 4 by 2 kallax set makes a nice playing surface too. We've got one for a street of modular buildings and another has a lot of hogwarts on. The trofast table is then for more fluid building. We used to have, and need to replace, a wooden board that had the train set on sonic can be pulled out and then slipped under a bed.

I ought to point out here that we have a basement that is known as the lego room. This is not all in children's bedrooms! But my oldest is 15 so we've been amassing lego for a long time now.

@muldersspeedos

You need to think about what's best for your DS. It's his Lego, not yours!!

I LOVE getting my hands on a ton of mixed Lego & a pile of Lego instructions & building the original models. I totally understand your desire to keep each set together, but it really isn't how most children play with their Lego.
They play much more creatively if the Lego is unsorted or minimally sorted.

Your Lego mat is perfectly fine for now, when he gets more than you can contain in the one bag you can decide which other storage suits HIM.

You'll turn him off playing with it, if you insist on an anal storage system that HE has instigated.

We use plastic tower drawers, and separate by colours, half filling the drawers so they’re good for rummaging. I’ve lined the dark coloured drawers with white paper to make it easier to find bricks.

We also have smaller drawers for specific brick types (wheels, long thin ones, glass, the precious 2x4s, plates..) and we started with empty drawers so ds could create his own categories of importance.

We have a number of boxes for particular types of Lego like Super Mario or Harry Potter.

We have shelves for display. And under the bed we have some shallow boxes for unsorted Lego, important keep apart Lego and Lego that ds has agreed can be sorted back into the system (this is rarer than I anticipated when I set this up)

Running in parallel to this system is ds’ own system which is space and time based, with pieces and builds spread out across his floor and on every flat surface. He has asd and knows if things have been moved. Our compromise is that Lego is allowed anywhere on his rug, but not in the rest of the floor, and not on the window board (so the room can be aired).

It took a few goes and a lot of patient listening to get this far and largely it works. Ideally I’d like to cut back on the amount of Lego but it keeps coming.

Occasionally I spend ages resorting when he's mixed them up.
Seriously!!...you have waaaay too much time on your hands 🤣

My only tip is to use a large double sheet laid on the floor - mine always built on the floor so bricks would go everywhere. It helps keep bricks contained and makes it easier to clear up at the end. The sheet was kept with the Lego and the kids appreciated the reason for it.

@Woeismethischristmas

I have a stackable Lego sorter from Amazon. I has filters so you shake it and all the tiny bricks fall to the bottom, medium in middle, big in the top. An extra one for the people. One for current build project. We have one for each child. It’s clear so really easy to spot bricks, detach, build, restack.

That sounds amazing!!