Lego storage solutions

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DS1 has just moved from Duplo to Lego and I'm wondering how best to store it. We have quite a few sets already, including small City sets and bigger ones. There are some miniscule pieces and, apart from not wanting to lose bits, I'm quite partial to DS2 (11 months and explores voraciously with his mouth!). Anyone come across any plastic or otherwise ways of keeping the stuff together?

I hate to sound defeatist, but the stuff is evil and will escape any storage container no matter how secure. It will then lurk in the places that you are most likely to walk barefoot, or make it's way through your DS2's (or in our case the dog's) digestive system to make a surprise reappearance in a nappy (or garden for us).

So far the most sucess I have had has been to have a large-ish lidded plastic box. Pieces that are not-specific to a particular thing can go into it loose. Anything you want to keep together (perhaps you're DS is part-way through making it) can go in one of those lidded plastic tubs that M&S sell mini-bites in (the mini flapjack/mini swiss rolls/cake things). Small and fiddly things can go into a lidded pesto or humus tub.

When my DS (older than yours so does quite fiddly ones now) is making up a new lego kit thing he uses nesting silicone bowls that I use for cooking. As each little pack is opened it goes into it's own bowl. They are high-sided so he can fossick through them without the bits shooting over the side and disappearing into the dog under the sofa.

Also, for several years I had a rule that if anyone gave DS a lego kit that was tricky/above his age level then they had to help him build it. This rule had to be brought in due to the severe trauma (DH's trauma that is) following DS's god-fathers gift of a complete City airport (recommended age 8-12 I think) to DS when he was 4.5 years.

I do know the correct usage of your/you're. Honestly!

Also having a large base helps to contain the imaginative building. DS likes to make lots of houses/offices/castles and they are far less likely to shatter and spread across the room if he builds them from the bottom up on a base.

So far we pile it all into a plastic crate with a lid (from B&Q i think) that we happened to have.

It involves lots of rooting around for bits but DS1 seems happy enough with this so far.

I'm thinking of getting the Box4Blox I've seen on Amazon for Christmas for me him to see if that will help. Though the big road pieces won't fit in that so that's not a huge help. Maybe the roads & put-together stuff can stay in the crate and all odds and sods can go in the new Box.

We got an amazing bag from Great Little Traiding. It's a huge circle of material with a draw string round the edge

At the end of the day you put all the Lego back on the material and pull the drawstring up and hang it on the end of the bed or behind the drawer.

We use a big plastic storage box with a lid. But, now he's started buying sets with his saved up pocket money, he's got quite fussy about them getting mixed up, so he likes buying smaller boxes with lids from the pound shop, for each set. I swear the stuff breeds and walks off on its own.

And yes, it seems to have a magnetic attraction to adults' feet...

Wow, some great ideas. At least an excuse to eat loads more cake and ice cream..

You can't call yourself a parent until you have stepped on a rogue piece of lego ...

Ikea have a whole lot of storage ideas that are adaptable. My son's lego all is sorted by colour and put into trays ....

We have (mostly scrounged) Celebrations plastic boxes, each with one or two colours in. They stack nicely. Plus one labelled BITS for the tiny pieces of any colour that come from sets but you can't remember which one. It means that if we want to rebuild, say, the rescue helicopter, we can hunt through the boxes and find the pieces quite fast. Another box is WHEELS and a final (large) shoebox is MODELS ie half-built bits I can identify!

Having said that, there's always one bit under the sofa.

DS1 has the Ikea Trofast storage units with the shallowest 'drawers' so that the bits can be sorted into 'people', 'special bricks', 'special pieces' (ie bits which aren't bricks but which are still different from normal bricks), 'flat pieces', 'vehicle bits' and one larger one for 'basic bricks'. He has a lot of Lego. Naturally all drawers are labelled, but it has meant he (and more importantly DH who gets cross when not finding things!) has a better chance of finding the right brick.

I have discovered I am happy sorting bricks! (it has helped my OCD )

I had ds's all beautifully sorted in little compartmented storage boxes. Clippy bits in here, minifigure accessories in there, tiles in this bit, 8x2 plates in that drawer etc etc etc.

He really enjoyed playing with it when it was sorted like that, he could find the exact bit he was after.

But he wouldn't ever help put it away, so until he learns to do that, it's all shoved in a huge box willy nilly for him to rake through.

DS has several sets of plastic drawers from Wilkinsons.

I'm already in despair, and DS1 is only 4.5. The thing is, I LOVE Lego. I was so, so happy when he entered the Age of Lego. But he is a creative Artist and I am just anal. He has several sets of various eras and themes. (My mum rooted around and found all our castle and space lego from the 70's/80's. There is now tons of the stuff in the house.) I try to keep all the new stuff (that I've paid actual money for), along with the minifigs that I he has a slight addiction to, in the tub that came with his first set. (Now bursting.) The rest is meant to be stored in large Rubbermaid-type lidded tubs, which at present live under the dining table, because the table is the only place he's allowed to construct. DS2 already has a lego homing instinct.

I get him to use large trays when he's making stuff, in a bid to contain it and avoid meltdowns when a crucial part is missing.

It HAS to be in lidded containers. I am actually feeling uncomfortable about the idea of storing it in Trofast open storage or the like. Don't they get all dusty and filled with little curly hairs, or is that just me? DS2 will be into open containers in a flash, and DS1 is clumsy enough to knock them over. I'm now contemplating starting to store it according to brick type or theme, but that's madness, because it simply isn't important to him. Unless I want to spend hours every evening resorting the stuff, it's all going to be mixed up.

We have 2 lots of plastic drawer units from Wilkinsons too. Also have some of the Really Useful Boxes inside the drawers

IKEA do Trofast lids :-)

Sorry Reshape don't panic, Trofast has lids!

Reading this thread has made me consider the idea that How You Store Lego Says Something About You.

Lego do some fab but pricey storage boxes shaped like Lego blocks which slot together a la the smaller stuff try eBay. I particularly like the giant Lego heads.

The giant Lego bricks/heads are way too small. I've just got two 42-litre under-bed plastic boxes for MrNC's old lego which ds is getting into, with lots of shoeboxes and other boxes inside. My old lego is still at my parents to add to it later...

DD's still on duplo in large plastic crate with lid which is part of storage system. As children, we had generic pieces in similar crates, then technical stuff in a large toolbox (one where you have 3 or 4 layers of trays with dividers). Think if either DC progress that far with Lego I'll do the same, it worked very well. Not very attractive though (ours was in cupboard).

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Notcitrus - i'd recommend not bringing your Lego back from your parents' - we have left my sister and my Lego at my parents' house and the DSs love having it there to play with when we stay. It keeps them quiet for hours!

Well I've made a start with the new order. I purchased labels on a roll this morning, aswell as another tub of Kelly's ice cream. I've boxed up what I can find and labelled the boxes and lids.

I looked at the Box4Blocks but at £25 I thought I'd give my ice cream & cake tubs a try first. At the moment we're going to try keeping the different sets together & then have a small tub for the odds & sods.

Didn't know Trofast did lids. We got our trofast unit off ebay and we live a way off from the nearest Ikea so I don't often get a chance to go shopping.

Hooray, so next time I twist DH's arm to spend a day just outside Milton Keynes, we will buy lids and then DS2's toddler toys will remain dust-free.