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.

How many boxes of Heroes did you have to eat in order to use them as storage for Lego though?

Oh I just recycled them from work in the main, though of course we may have bought one or two... ;)

Lego here is kept in various plastic containers - DHs lego (from his childhood) is sorted by colour and type, but DS1 and DD have started having new sets and I need to think of how to store this before it gets lost/muddled up...i can see some loose lego on the floor as I type .

I find sorting very theraputic and thoroughly enjoy sorting it, but only on my own!

I find the plastic containers that some washing liquid capsules come in are really useful - they are clear, stackable, hinge-lidded, free - perfect! I think I will steal the idea about storing all the instructions together in a folder

I think lego is specifically designed to increase parental stress levels. I have the opposite scenario - ours (and we have vast amounts) all ends up in a huge box. This is despite having purpose built storage with lots of separate containers. Cue kids tipping it all over the floor trying to find the one bit they need. Or fighting with each other because they both want the same bit and they can only find one (despite having hundreds if they could only find them).

Lego then spreads all over the house and I periodically threaten to throw it all away if they don't put the bloody stuff away.

Some lego even manages to make it into the storage containers for a while but not for long because they use it again as soon as they can easily find it.

And the cycle goes round and round and round.

I have a love hate relationship with lego. I love what they can do with it, but I hate the ability to colonise the whole house.

I do like <a class="break-all" href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=lego+storage&start=76&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&rlz=1T4ACAW_en___GB393&tbm=isch&tbnid=UXb8SFQM9lQOZM:&imgrefurl=iheartorganizing.blogspot.com/2011/10/organizing-legos-part-3-creating.html&docid=SWmvgHbsMmCjZM&imgurl=2.bp.blogspot.com/-Q02nls3mfYc/Tqm0iIn22GI/AAAAAAAANqE/hbZGcF5MtrA/s1600/OrganizedLegoStorage19.jpg&w=525&h=787&ei=8mXPT83uFaj80QXbt9XJCw&zoom=1&biw=1366&bih=618" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">this idea

The noise of a box of an enormous 'stuff' being tipped out makes my heart sink.

This thread is worrying me! OP I'm very glad you've got your SBS, but you've all struck terror into my heart!

DH is a Lego fan, DS is only 1, so he can't use him as an excuse yet, but I can currently see 11 boxes of Lego, two shelves of mini figures, and the Lego Bible. And I know vaguely how much is stacked in DS's room, and in the attic. And that's not even counting the bloody Lego Star Wars models on top of the wardrobes.
He bought 2, yes 2, Lego Death Stars a few years ago for £300 each , saying they were an investment (at which I gave him this face), and the bastard has been proved right! They're going for £1500+ on eBay! I can't sodding believe it.
He calls it 'The Legocy'. That's right, he's relying on plastic bricks for his pension

There's going to be one hell of a power struggle when DS gets old enough to play with it all...

DH build a big storage box that opens up like a sewing box. It has lots of little dividers so we can sort all the bits and the bottom is open for bits that still need sorting. Sadly that box is now too small so we are getting this to put some bits in. I've also ordered the Lego sorter. That looks great.

When the Lego is sorted it is easier to make stuff again. We have so much Lego it would be impossible if it were just all in one big box. And anyway I love sorting it! If I do about 10 mins each night it keeps it sorted enough to find most stuff.

Tiddly did he buy the big Death Star with all the different rooms? That is number one on our DS's wish list. DS even said he would go without swimming lessons for a whole year to get it! (Sorry, Lego is important but swimming isn't negotiable.

I'm just pleased to hear how seriously everyone takes their lego storage isooos.i thought we were the only ones.

9 pages about Lego storage! I'm not going to read all of it ...

We dump everything in one big box for everything (including Lego from DH's childhood), but we have smaller satellite boxes containing flavours of the month or little tricky pieces. DSs organise them and tidy them. Instruction booklets are scattered throughout the house.

Is that heresy?

Buy a building mixing spot from B and Q, (about £15, basically a big tray with a lip that they use in pre-schools for sand play etc) put all lego in there, then they can sit in it and scrabble around to their hearts content and you can leave it out in one place. Works for us! No more lego on floor.

camdancer I assume so, it's massive! One is for him to build and admire, the second isn't even going to be unpacked from its Lego shipping box, to be sold as pristine as possible...

Oh ffs, I've just been corrected. Sigh.
They're not Lego Death Stars, the expensive ones he bought as investments were in fact first edition Millennium Falcons. Bought for £350, and currently going for £2-2.5K if he were to sell them.
My Lego knowledge is clearly lacking...

We've got about 18 of the 'one shelf high' ikea trofast drawers of Lego. It's sorted into categories like wheels, people and their accessories, doors and windows, anything that only has one stud, beams, one or two stud wide flats, wider rectangular flats, weird flats, etc. Two are full of basic eight studders.

We have tons of the stuff, courtesy of my two sons - some of it stayed built for a while - we had a lego town laid out in the play room - but basically it is all mixed into 8 underbed stores and about half a dozen other crates now. I say that mixing it up is definitely better for their creative imagination but if you are looking at future resale value and you don't have a spare year or two free to re-sort it, then you are best to keep it together in sets. No 1 son's friend used to love coming to ours to play lego as his mum made him keep his in sets whereas he actually got to "play" with ours!! Boys are coming up 12 and 11 now and have moved on to other things (minecraft on the PC mainly - like virtual lego!) but I am loath to do anything with the tons of bricks - there is thousands of pounds worth. I even had to increase my home insurance because of it. OH says to just sell it by the kilo but it's worth more than that.......and actually should we just keep it for our grandkids now?? :o)

This is very interesting and calls into question fundamental question about lego and what its real play value is. Is it really to turn out ace flat pack builders of the future, e.g. kids who can follow instructions. Or is it to turn out creatively minded individuals? Yes, so they can play imaginative games with the originally built models, but after a while they fall apart, so it doesn't endure. Conclusion, far better to chuck it in one box after a while.

CardyMow this is the Lego Ideas book that DS has. I'm not sure how much he uses it, but it went down very well as a Christmas present a couple of years ago. There are other ones as well, on Amazon.

Nothing like a bit of Lego sorting. Strangely satisfying when I should be doing other boring important work around the house.

Amck my husband kept his lego, its waiting for our children.

Our vast duplo collection will be saved for them too.

amck5700 - took me three weeks to re-sort all of ours ready for Ds2. Three weeks, most of the skin off my knuckles and lost more than a few of my marbles. Ended up dreaming I was buliding myself my own lego prison.

my boy prefers his lego badass guns book to the other ideas ones now :)

On a serious note, he can build anything and creates all sorts inspired by movies or other games he plays - the two of them did a pokemon series once and they have built loads of different buildings - including an ofice block that looked like a pc tower with a penthouse at the top - it had a slide out balcony that was meant to be the disc drive drawer of the PC - that didn't come as a lego set!

They did a hunger games the other week and built working models of catapults and other things.

Definitely mix it up - there is nothing like seeing yoda on a skateboard or batman sitting in a cafe on a date with a mermaid...

nice to see that I am not the only one who is saving it for future generations.....handily it also means that I can save sorting it out to sell :)

We do need to raise £4k in the next year for the boys scout trip to America but I seriously think that there are easier ways to make money than dealing with the lego issue!

As kids we had a big curver box of mixed-up lego. We didn't have instruction booklets and just built our own stuff and used our imagination. All I remember is having lots of fun with it :-)

Just asked my DH what he would do (we are expecting our first child) and when I told him what we did as kids (one big mixed up box) he completely freaked out. hmmm sounds like I'll have a battle on my hands...

We have several million lego bricks, we keep the boxes until they fall apart then put them into one of the several 3ft x1 ft x1ft lego tubs we have, the boys don't mind at that stage I think they think it's a fair cop. I still let ds2 now 12, spend his money on and get given lego even tho we have more than enough for several hundred families. We have also have subdivided tool boxes in which he put his star wars men in-or weapons I don't know I don't enquire and lots of shoe boxes. Our sitting room is frequently covered in it and we all have several lego related injury stories...Yet I'd still rather they played with that rather than the xbox etc