To mix up all the Lego into one big storage box?

[deathbylego]

The space sets, the police trucks, the three-in-one robot/dinosaur/sports car/propeller plane sets, the power mining underwater Atlantis space star wars stuff.

At the moment all sets live in their own clear boxes, in various stages of completeness (none really, actually complete). This means I cannot clear up the Lego, as only DS (8) knows where it should go and what piece belongs to what set, and this causes endless arguments. He has no organisational impulses whatsoever. The boxes are everywhere, and I feel my blood pressure rising as sets that should stay together become scattered. His room is a tip, boxes everywhere.

DH is horrified that I want to mix up the sets. But I am itching, ITCHING, to just dump it all in one big box and have done with it. I can feel my stress levels lowering just thinking about it. Then I could just say, 'Tidy up, DS', and he could toss it all into the Big Box. Done.

Please may I? I promise to keep all the instruction booklets.

This is what we do:

All original packaging put away in attic.
All instruction booklets in one drawer.
Two pieces of large pine (an old wardrobe top and bottom) under bed, which DH bought extra lego boards and pieces to make into one Tatooine and one Hoth environment. All lego sets related to these environments go on these boards, and can then been turned into other things but not removed from their allocated boards.
Harry Potter lego sets on a bookcase.
Inferior lego (castle sets, Indiana Jones) in large plastic tubs with lids.
Unsorted lego in a set of sliding trays with multiple compartments which we bought from lego but I'm not sure if they sell them anymore.
Spare minifigures in a set of ikea boxes which have multiple storage compartments.

But this still doesn't quite work and we may be turning the whole cellar into a lego room. And DS is now 14, and the lego playing shows no signs of coming to an end.

We have a huge plastic box, and a copy of the Lego Ideas Book. DS1 is 5 and can spend hours crafting little spaceships etc - his weekend 'treat' is staying up late and building Lego with his Dad :)

The kits usually last about a week before they are gradually assimilated into something more interesting. Current favourite is a Monster Castle made from grey, brown and red bricks - it has a working portcullis, a trapdoor, a Spooky Forest and er Harry Potter in it. I may be slightly addicted to Lego

DH is going to his Mum's house on Friday to bring back his three massive buckets of Lego from when he was a child. DS1 is beside himself with excitement

Surely the whole point is to mix it up??

If anyone wants someone to come round and colour code / sort all their Lego I will do it for endless tea and chocolate biscuits .

Surely the whole point of lego is tobuild the set once then mix it all up and build whatever you fancy. Lego is (imo) to be played with, not to create a model to look at.

Ours is all mixed up but I do keep the instructions so we can rebuild specific sets if we want to. I do also have a compartmented box for all the little fiddly bits so they don't get lost

And organise the booklets by genre and difficulty?

If a job's worth doing and all that :)

In a clear ring folder of course.

I too have superglued lego sets together

lego is the work of the devil.

could you not just get a spare box and put the ones on the floor into that box for DC to sort out

Apply Hoover to Lego and solve the who problem.

what the do with lego depends on the age of the child and how they tend to play.

My 16 year old will spend hours going through pick a brick type sites working out what bricks he needs for his next creation and a box of odd bits will then duly arrive and the creation comes to life. A few of these creations will then not meet expectations and be dismantled and the parts filed away for furture projects. Others do measure up and join the collection.

those who superglue lego it is much easier to use spay glue and spay the completed model. Saves gluing fingers together

Whatever you do, don't get rid of it without asking.
My dad sold all mine because "I was too old for it".

That is still a very sore point. I wanted to pass it on to my DS.

He has 1 kit but lots of collection such as bricks, wheels and gears set. Sadly not organised - in a big box but my DS does not seem to understand the principle of get 1 thing out of a box when you can just tip it out on the carpet.

Ours is a random mess but am toying with the idea of getting one of these
www.amazon.co.uk/BOX4BLOX-Storage-Available-Exclusively-Amazon-co-uk/dp/B004UJFUP2/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1NOC32WC4QKW7&colid=2M6GIT0A1CB6B

I have an alternative solution that might work for you, OP (NB I don't actually have kids yet! - but it's what we did with lego when I was little).

If you or DH wants to avoid mixing everything together completely, instead of sorting by the set, sort by the type of piece. You can put all the bricks together, all the flats, etc. Then everything that looks vaguely similar goes in its own box e.g. people & people accessories, roof pieces, unique pirate or space pieces, or whatever categories work for you. It's much easier because when you pick up a piece you can just tell which box it should go in, rather than having to refer to the instructions every time you put away. The easiest way of storing this is to either have small boxes that fit inside one big one, or a compartmentalised box.

IMO there's nothing wrong with building from the instructions. They'll still build from imagination as well, and I think they're two different but equally valid activities. If kids are doing something for no other reason than that they like it, surely that's playing, even if it isn't what you'd choose to do yourself?

at super gluing Lego

My DS is only 6 and not really picky about his lego storage yet, I just like it packed away at the end of the day!

He has a few of those giant bricks for storing them in. They aren't that big and it's really annoying as there are grooves in the bottom, just the right size for all the light bricks to get stuck in. But I think they look quite funky. Lego stays in the lounge but DH is in the process of building a desk for DS which is lipped so the lego can be tipped out and not go everywhere and covered in lego board.

When he does get a new set, we build it, he plays with it then it disintegrates and ends up along all the other stuff. I keep the books but he has never yet asked to rebuild something. Today he's spent 2 hours building lots of random things, garages etc.

I am really sad though. I went onto Ebay to look into mini figures. It's crazy! Some of the Star Wars ones we have sell for a fiver! Anyway I've bought a Mechanic, a Skeleton, a Hippy - they are so cool!

DS has already decided he's going as a lego man for halloween this year.

It all comes down to personality and ability, doesn't it? DH has the keep-it-in-sets personality, but SBS ability. I fear DS shares this genetic fault. It's a minor family tragedy.

This thread is cathartic. It's helped me work out all my non-financial Lego issues.

1. I want to hire Meglet to sort the Lego, but fear I would need to have her round near daily to keep the madness in check. (There IS a business idea here, there is. Go for it.)

2. I'm willing to keep the minifigures seperate.

3. I will keep all the instruction booklets next to the Lego Ideas book on the book shelf.

4. Any very special sets may be kept in their own boxes, but the minute a piece strays from said box, it's heading for the SBS. No orphan pieces littering shelves and carpets and tabletops!

5. Large, shallow, underbed boxes for the rest.

6. ennimead I will not sell it or give it away without the express, written permission of the rightful owner. That was very wrong of your Dad. Very wrong.

I've dumped all our different sets into one huge box. I've just kept all the booklets (seems like hundreds!) in a couple of plastic wallets, so if he (DS2,nearly 12) ever feels the need to make the complete models again he can try. We put the smaller,rarer bits into little plastic containers, and the lego people go in a sweet tin!

Go for it! Booklets in another box inside the big one.

ennimead I am in awe at your idea of the instruction booklets in a ring binder, in clear plastic. That's so brilliant.

I have been buying Lego ever since DS was about 18months, he's currently 12 and happily playing away upstairs making working guns out of Lego. With his 14 year old mate.

We're Lego sorters. Never used to be, and was constantly being badgered to buy more Lego. Then I knuckled down and sorted it all out by colour, figures and odds & sods (e.g. flagpoles, small boat, palm tree etc), all put into IKEA storage boxes (that he already had). DS was thrilled to bits with my hard work and plays even more with it. He couldn't believe he had so much, and hasn't asked for another new Lego kit since. (Technics is separate by the way. As is the Lego train set.) Instruction booklets currently stuffed in a too-small IKEA container, shortly to be transferred to a ring binder.

DS impressed that his awesome mother loved him enough to do the sorting for him, I have earned Lego brownie points to last me into my next lifetime and DS's bedroom is no longer a health & safety danger zone.

Haven't read the whole thread, but does anyone keep the Lego sets in the original tubs and boxes? I have been known to sort through DS1's Lego with him, making sure all the pieces are there using the parts guide at the back of the instruction booklet. He's got a lot of Lego.

He does build his own stuff and rarely uses instructions now but I can feel a bit of a cold sweat when he mixes the sets up.

DS2 prefers Playmobil but keeping that sorted was a challenge too far.

Do you think there is somebody at lego headquarter's whose job it is to sort all the lego at the end of each day, or do the designers just open a new packet when they are designing new sets?

I really want to know this.

Stick them all in together! That's what lego is for.

Merrymouse, sadly I think designing new sets is probably done on a computer.

I watched a program not so long ago about lego hq in Denmark. they did have grown men with big boxes of lego going through ideas for new sets but they use 3d modling technology from the original design sketches.

It cost hundreds of thousands to produce a new shaped brick so they try to use as many pre existing pieces as possible.