To ask for the simplest way to organize a fuckton of lego?

[WickedWytch]

Personally I’m in favour of building a house from lego at the bottom of the garden where all the stuffed toys can live but the dc aren’t appreciating the genius of this solution.

In the meantime is there some kind of logical and simple way to organize it all that 3 unmotivated dc and an adult who can’t distinguish ninjago from chima can all manage to follow?

We’ve tried the Oh FuckIt (trademark) system of leaving it all over the floor. But despite the obvious advantages of free burglar proofing, it feels time to try something a bit more sophisticated.

So what works? Sorting by colour? By stud combinations? Filling a skip?

Ikea is your friend. Alternatively just don’t tidy it away before vacuuming.

A great big fuck off box that lives under the table in the dining room. It's hidden, it's easy to get out when wanted and is big enough to hold it all. Who has the time or the inclination to sort and store it in all the different colours?!

The key part to storing lego is that it is easy to clean up. The hunting for the right bits is half of the fun of building it

This has always been my Lego philosophy, and will continue to be once my boys are old enough to lego. Big ol' under-bed storage boxes for me.

Surely the rule of Lego is that the people who play with the stuff chose how they want to sort it? Your role is simply to provide a container or two and a threatening hoover from time to time?

May be missing the point somewhat....as have no idea what chima or ninjago is either (nor autocorrect in my defence!)

I have a chest of drawers filled with Tupperware boxes, with all the Lego sorted by type into different boxes. So easy to find what you need. Took HOURS to patiently sort it all. But really paid off.

Sorry, did I say have? I meant had 🙈 a few weeks ago the toddler found the chest of drawers. The four year old called out “mum, there’s son Lego on the spare room floor”. No, there was ALL the Lego on the spare room floor...😭

Now it’s all just thrown in, a Lego free for all. The Kragle in me is itching just thinking about it...

I have 10 years' Lego experience. Please don't waste your time or your children's time organising it. It is unsustainable and unnecessary. Put it all in a big big plastic box. Spend the time you save having fun.

Big plastic box.

Smaller plastic boxes for people, wheels/propellers, animals, weapons (yes, really), and a small box of accessories (postbox, trolleys, flames etc).
DS is 7yo and there is no way A. he'd keep stuff tidied away in colour order and B. I ain't doin it for him!

It's a child's toy, let them play and organise how they like.

When we were kids, in the days when lego was basically generic and unadulterated by branding/sets, my mum gave us a big bucket with a lid on it. I now realise it was a recycled nappy bucket.

We used to have a picnic rug on the floor and just tip it out. It was then gathered up and poured back into the bucket at the end of play.

I've come over all nostalgic!🤣

Many years ago autistic me would happily spend an hour reorganising dd's bead collection into our mutually agreed categories.
The Lego avalanche that ds is in possession of defies me. I'd love to sort it into a hundred containers but that way madness lies. Instead we have the big lego brick containers stacked up with it all just scooped and dumped in.

When I grew up we had the lego mixed in one big box. It was fine, if we wanted to build something we just had to look for the specific piece first. Kept us busy for days months.

My dad gave us the original type of nano Lego years and years ago, it was mostly grey and clearly used for planning buildings he stole from Work or a skip. My Dsis and I used to play with it out of a cardboard box, building different grey versions of things. Same colour is not useful for finding things - you need size together

An Ikea laundry basket. The main goal was something that I could fling bits into from a fair distance (although not from other floors of the house, so I am considering some kind of dumb-waiter arrangement for the bits that seem hell-bent on escaping upstairs).

There have been attempts to sort into body parts/wheels/tiny unfindable pieces, but these have largely been unappreciated and I now relish my role as chief 'finder' who gets to rake through the basket to find requested pieces as my little master builders use their imaginations!

Surely part of the point of playing with Lego is to spend 75% of the time searching for that one brick?

It's not a Kondo issue, it's about child play and discovery

I drove myself mad trying to keep DS lego collection organised. It's now in a 3 drawer tower under his bed (mid sleeper) and we have a separate tub for minifigures. That's it.

Hide it in the garage, someone can worry about it when I die. Working week so far.

DS has a lovely Lego table with a removable giant base plate (base plates stuck to a bit of ply) and lots of clever Ikea storage around it. Shelves above, dh hacked a trofast to fit the space and the kitchen / spice rack things with white buckets hanging off them.

It was a 4th birthday present.

I spent weeks beforehand sorting Lego in to colours, categories, reassembling sets and putting those in to clearly labelled Tupperware.

DS had a tantrum about two weeks later and threw everything everywhere.

Now it is mostly jumbled up though as he gets older ds is keener on keeping sets together (mostly still built) so those go up on the shelves.

Wheely bin.Hate the stuff

Fire

Big box. I'm sure hunting for the last purple 2 by 4 is practising some useful cognitive skill

Plastic boxes with lids that fit under bunk beds.

I know this is an old thread but I actually now know the answer to this question so I thought I would share.

Zip bin toy box. Unzips into a play mat, rezips into a box. Life changer!

E.g.

www.ebay.com/p/137384916