How to store playmobil

[GreenLeafTea]

This Christmas I bought my four year old son the playmobil pirate ship. He also got a farm shop from his grandparents. I spent ages before Christmas carefully assembling both and he was really pleased with them.

He then broke them both up. The pieces are everywhere. We have tried reassembling them but can't find all the pieces so I spent ages scouring the house and garden gathering all the little bits up and will remake them while he is as preschool. But most likely he will end up breaking them up again. Is this how playmobil works? How on earth do you store it all. It's actually driving me a bit crazy. I wish I had stuck with Lego.

[legalalien]

I feel for you. I once bought 4 yo DS the playmobil hospital, which had coveted for a while. Every time it got built he "bombed" it with his extensive collection of model WWII bombers. My appeals to the Geneva Convention fell on deaf ears.

The bits ended up in a box, but i did have them all and sold them second hand at a later date. :)

[MortifiedAdams]

Cut out the picture from.the box and put them and the instructions all into either a file or another box..Then take all.PLaymobil, from all packs, and put in a large tub.

When its Playmobil.time, tip it all.on the floor and let his imagination step in. Thats the beauty of it.

[mercibucket]

i wouldnt let mine break up an item like a ship or house. imo thats not what playmobil is about, it also stays in the house not the garden
(uptight)

so our playmobil stays in big tubs or chests in the house in between playtime. the large items stay more or less made up in boxes or out on a table in the living room or bedroom

boxes are in the attic - shudder at the idea of cutting them up

lego is easier for construction play. my boys never really saw the point of playmobil

[NeverQuiteSure]

We have accumulated lots of large playmobil 'vehicles' (planes, pirate ship, trucks, ships etc), plus an airport building, observation tower, small house and numerous small 'bitty' sets (horses etc). I have been tearing my hair out, but we now have the following solution:

Large cupboard almost entirely given over to playmobil. Two low shelves plus floor space for the buildings, pirate ship and larger planes so they can be stored with minimal disassembly (the children to like to 're-imagine' them, but I always put them back to normal before storing them)

One large open topped box for all the smaller vehicles.

A variety of stacking clear plastic boxes (with lids) for the smaller pieces and sets. Eg. All the airport vehicles and suitcases in one box, horse/farm sets in another box, pirate accessories in another... I did originally split the people into different boxes but found it limited play too much, so now all the people live happily together in a separate box! Each box has a printed picture of the contents to help the children tidy up (in theory anyway!!)

Reading this back it sounds like awful lot of playmobil, but we have 3 children and they all are or have been very into it!

[LadybirdsAreFab]

DD (3 nearly 4) has the dolls house and the farm shop. We bought the Lack coffee table from Ikea with the shelf underneath it. The house & shop sit on top and we have baskets on the shelf with the spare bits. We do also have the harbour but it is mostly ignored so that has gone into a cupboard until she is a bit older. She also has the pool but that sits on top of the fridge as she likes playing with it when I am cooking and it is easer to clean up spilt water from there, the bits are in tupperare boxes.

We have also cut up the boxes and stored the instructions with this bit. No loft unfortunatly.

You can get copies of the instruction sheets on their website.

[ProfYaffle]

Similar to Ladybirds, we got a table from Ikea, stored 'big' items (eg school house, wildlife lodge thingie) on top and smaller pieces are in lidded boxes stashed underneath. Smaller sets are in ziplock bags in the boxes.

I also don't allow the large items to be broken down. The girls don't want to anyway and dh would be heartbroken after spending hours assembling everything.

[NeverQuiteSure]

[MrsBucketxx]

the big bit stay put together, in his room and the rest is in bags so we can play when needed without any missing pieces.

my ds is v carefull with his toys and would break them, unlike dd.

[FreshWest]

We got these from Homebase. They have a variety of sizes, there is also a selection on their website here
I try and have the rule that one must go away before we open another.......

[goodmum123]

I store all toys in boxes from ikea 2.99 with a lid for a large box but all sizes available. They stack neatly too. Using permanent pen I write on the box what is in it eg Lego, playmobil, vehicles . At the end if the day we (or I) sort it out where it belongs. Actually very therapeutic!

I sound mad ;-)

[ravenAK]

Really Useful Boxes are your friend.

If you get the ones with clear lids, you can tape box fronts to the inside of lids so it's easy to see what should go in each box.

Or (if you're thinking eventual ebay...) download a pic of each model from google images/Amazon rather than cutting up the original boxes.

[GreenLeafTea]

Thank you some great ideas! We reconstructed the house last night and it wasn't too bad. I went to get a Tupperware box for all the bits when I came back up he had turned into a dinosaur and was about to destroy it but I managed to keep it together.

We are going to attempt the pirate ship this weekend! I don't see any of his toys being Ebayable but little sister really enjoyed playing with the house last night.

I guess with practice it gets easier putting everything back together again.

[Startail]

Low Book shelf with shoe boxes, DD plays on the top and parks unwanted vehicles and little bits on the shelves below. Officially the boxes are sorted, people, animals, hospital, but it doesn't happen.

Oh and don't buy the plane, it's huge and falls apart.

[NeverQuiteSure]

No, no, no, the plane is brilliant

We have this one and it's our best loved and best played with bit of Playmobil. It's the one item I recommend to everyone! DD has been playing with it since she was 2.5 and we've have no problems with it falling apart. Yes, the engines and tail do come off but this makes for very satisfying aviation disasters and the children find it easy to put them back on again. It is bloody huge though!

[GreenLeafTea]

Thanks, is it definitely worth perservering with playmobil then? We can't use cardboard boxes because they get destroyed. Will pick up some plastic ones. Currently the base part of the pirate ship has been transformed into a building site with all his construction cards and then the emergency vehicles parked around. He is very into dinosaurs so I was thinking of some dinosaur playmobil for his birthday.

[NormanTheForeman]

Definitely worth persevering with Playmobil in my opinion, but then I am a plastic Playmobil chap, so a bit biased!

My owner (who is now 12) has masses of the stuff. We generally used to keep the buildings made up, and then store the rest of the sets in large plastic boxes, a different one for each "theme", e.g. fire, police, airport etc. He would often recombine the buildings though into something a bit different!

These days we have disassembled some of the buildings and put them in boxes to make more space in the playroom for his drum kit. He can assemble the buildings quite quickly when he needs them now.

[NeverQuiteSure]

I think it's brilliant that your DS is playing with it in such an imaginative way. I've found the way ours play with it changes over time; initially for role-play type games (we have the airport building which gets to be a house, a hotel, a hospital, etc) and later as a construction system (DSS aged 9 is at this stage now). Perhaps your DS has decided to just skip a few stages!

I have bought bags of 'bits' from ebay to bulk out our collection. For example, instead of buying the hospital building I bought a load of doctors, beds and incubators etc via ebay and we have managed to avoid yet another building to store!

If you are looking to avoid the faff of lots of little bits, then the vehicles are great. DS got this spy car for his 4th birthday and both him and 2.5 year old DD loved it. A bonus being that it is very easy to store. They also do a range of 'take along' toys like this house which store nicely.

Can you tell I'm a big fan?

[GreenLeafTea]

Thanks, he does have a great imagination. He would love that spy car! It's nice to hear of slightly older children still playing with it. I will have a look on eBay too.

[eatchicken1]

Hi, I am new to Mumsnet .....thanks for the add. 1) I am Nanny. 2)what does ds & dd mean? 3) I don't have hard floors. My 3year old Grandson loves his playmobil but it falls over on carpeted floor. What ideas do you have for a usable base that is easy to store. Thanks.