How to organize and store your collection is a challenge for all LEGO fans. After I wrote about the very cool LEGO stacking bin, my curiosity was whetted and I decided to investigate the other choices - the ones used by most LEGO collectors, and few more esoteric options.
The best option for you will depend on many variables, including:
- How many pieces you have
- The types of pieces you have: blocks, robotics, etc.
- How you like to play/build
- Your space and budget constraints
Ways to Organize
momready.com suggests organizing by color.
wikiHow is the single best reference I've found on the topic of LEGO sorting and storage, and it suggests a progression of organizing approaches, as the collection grows: all together, by set, by size, by category, by part, by part and color.
Products to Consider: Specialized
1. For beginner collections, the LEGOs might simply be stored in the container they came in, especially if they came in a plastic box like this.
2. The LEGO store has a new category called storage, with only one product right now: the LEGO Store & Carry Case. The case has four removable, stackable trays with different sized sections.
3. The Kydz building table from Jonti-Craft has a base plate (LEGO or Duplooptions) and optional storage tubs underneath.
4. An interesting specialty product is BOX4BLOCKS, which sorts the LEGOs through a series of trays with different sized grids, so the blocks end up in a tray with similar sized blocks.
5. LEGO Education has storage bins in five different sizes. In many cases, the bins have small drain holes in the bottom, so you can wash and drain your bricks
6. LEGO Education also has small parts storage cabinets in 44-drawer and 64-drawer sizes.
7. Robotics Learning Store sells cases designed specifically for Mindstorms.
Products to Consider: Other Widely Used Options
Of course, there's no need to use products designed specifically for LEGOs.
8. Plastic bins and boxes of all sorts are popular options. JaZilla recommends some options on Squidoo. Nate Jacobs shows his collection of bins on Flickr. Tom has a LEGO room and lots of bins. Matt uses the plastic tubs that mushrooms come in.
9. Miguel Agullo has some plastic buckets with compartments that he says work wonderfully for his LEGO Technic pieces, but are hard to get.
10. When it comes to Mindstorms, tool boxes are a popular option. Jason Bartholme uses a Stanley ten compartment organizer. Peter Hoh on The NXT Step uses a Stanley Professional Deep Organizer, shown above.
11. Some folks really like Plano fishing tackle boxes; fans include David Bau and Ralph Hempel, who provides a nice photo.
12. Storage cabinets from companies like Akro-Mils are also popular; Jon Palmer at Zemi has a LEGO room with eight Akro-Mils storage cabinets.
Products to Consider: Other
13. Eric Harshbarger uses some old library card catalog cabinets.
14. Amazon.com shows that someone likes using scrapbooking carts and cases.
15. And then someone suggests storing them in socks: red LEGOs in red socks, etc. 
16. And here's a picture from a LEGO store, courtesy of sylvar/Ben Ostrowsky.
Finally, I'm indebted to wikiHow for pointing me to Remy Evard's essay on the evolution of LEGO sorting - which illuminates (with great humor) the continual storage challenges facing serious LEGO collectors.
[lead photo by feesta / Jeff Easter]
Friday, September 21, 2007
16 LEGO Storage Options
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32 comments:
This is a great article. I especially love all the photos and links. I was one of the authors of the article on wikihow that you mentioned. I'm glad you liked it. I get asked the question about storing LEGO toys, a lot. LEGO toys are so modular, that one would expect the answer of storage to be pretty simple, but it clearly isn't. I'm glad the LEGO company is starting to provide more storage products, but so far I've been pretty disappointed with what they've come up with. The new catalog has some expensive furniture and a box with trays. I think the Box4Blox is ingenious, but I finally got a chance to try it out, and you have to be careful not to pour in too many bricks at once. Ultimately, i think it will serve well as a tool for sorting rather than storing all my bricks in there.
one hundred movie reviews: Thank you for the kind words, and for the information on Box4Blox. As a non-collector, I was a bit hesitant to wade into this territory - but it's such an interesting organizing challenge that I just couldn't resist.
Nice summary. Personally I use a mix of the Stanley (formly Zag) organizers for very small parts (pins, 1x1 plates, gears, etc.), as the lift-out bins are very handy for dumping or digging, and Plano boxes (the large ones as shown for general parts, but some of the smaller ones are perfect for axles... I'm mostly a robotics guy). One aspect of the storage system that can play a role is mobility - my build area is the entire livingroom floor, which would have... "spousal consequences"... if I left everything there all the time. The Plano solution allows me to very securely move my entire collection (or just the parts of it I need that night) from the livingroom to the basement and back quickly and easily.
Incidently, the storage containers from Learning Robotics store are also sold in other stores as tackle boxes (somewhat cheaper, but without the very handy label inserts of course). This type of solution is great for schools and similar siutuations where you have a number of "identical kits" that you need to keep seperate & organized.
--
Brian Davis
Looking at the article URL my guess is you found a last minute number 16? ;-)
I'm using method #10 and #11, as you can see in a YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjiD_U3d7mU
Larger parts go into a nice piece from Ikea:
http://www.ikea.com/nl/nl/catalog/products/20107873
Brian and Foxbox: Thank you for your contributions!
Brian: I should definitely have listed "mobility" as one of the considerations when selecting a storage solution - thanks for adding that.
Foxbox: Yes, there was indeed a last minute #16. I wondered if anyone was going to notice that!
Great article but I guess our amount of lego is excessive. Take that IKEA cabinet with drawers and multiply it by six (all full to the brim and I think ours are actually bigger (20 pound per bin?)... they are the biggest plastic drawer units on wheels that Target sold and then stacked on top of each other) and now sagging! Hehe... plus two extra large bins for train and monorail, extra buckets for technic, plates, misc. large pieces, all the built sets laying around, built items all over the room and a huge over flowing bucket of stuff that needs to be sorted. We seriously need help (actual or mental... you decide!)
Organizing lego is totally crazy and insane but we do it by color, shape and size. Sure makes building a lot easier though!
moof: Thanks for writing! For the LEGO devotee, storage will always be a challenge.
Are there any ideas on organizing those Lego set instructions and Lego set box sides that have the with set images?
Anonymous, my first question would be whether you could get by without saving the instructions, and getting them off the web as needed. LEGO lets you download instructions.
There are other sites with scans of instructions and boxes, but I don't know the legality of those images.
If you do indeed want to keep all the instructions and box images, it probably comes down to picking a good filing system. Can you tell me what you've tried already - what worked and what didn't?
I started with a 3" thick 3-ring binder with the plastic sleeves that the instruction booklets would fit into. I'm considering using ring binder notebooks for drawings (roughly 12" x about 36") for the box pictures. I appreciate your thoughts on throwing the box pics away. Will consider that!
Anonymous, for things you really want to keep in paper form, binders can work fine. Some similar options are Itoya's Profolio products and Unikeep case binders. If you're finding you don't like binders and want a different kind of solution, write again and I'll point you to other options. It would help to have some idea of how much volume we're talking about.
But that 12" x 36" storage is a challenge. Assuming you want something portable (rather than something like a flat file cabinet) I've found at least one possible answer: the Easi Carrier from Easi File.
Our Lego collection is relatively small but for sorting, we found zippered mesh fabric toy bags for cheap at http://toybags.home.comcast.net Sort into bags and then toss all the bags in a big bin. The bags are also ideal for organizing lots of the other small toys our kids litter around the house.
Anonymous, thanks for writing! Those bags do indeed look useful for any number of things.
I have found that old luggage is a great way to store Legos. The one's we use have small wheels on the bottom that make it easy to move. We use the large zippered pocket on the outside front to store the directions, the one on the inside for storing the building plates. They stand up narrow for storage--or lie on their side to slide under a bed. When open, it is easy to dig through and find the piece you are looking for and quick to zip up and roll back into the closet. They are also very cheap (or free!) at second hand stores.
Good idea, Tina - thanks for sharing. Suitcases can be handy for storing and hauling all sorts of things - I just never thought of them for the LEGO collection.
Here's one more suggestion on how to organize your Lego bricks for efficient building.
Thanks to Jihn Trosko at OrganizingLA for the pointer.
That should have been JOHN Trosko in the prior comment.
Anyone know of a small "Automated Storage/Retrieval System" AKA AS/RS?
Think of a dresser sized cabinet, or larger, where the automation is that you ask for a certain part and it is presented to you in one of a number of fashions. This would probably work best and be cheapest at a small scale if you think of a series of drawer sized boxes that are on a chain-driven carosel, oriented vertically. Think of a Ferris wheel, but instead of seats, its 6-8" tall x 4' wide x 1' deep boxes, and instead of a big circle of metal framework, its an oval of chain, and instead of people, its legos. Using the above box dimensions, the whole thing might be about 4' tall x 4.5' wide x 2.5' deep. Access to storage boxes might be through the top, or by pulling the top box out like a drawer, in both cases at about waist height in this example. To get to a different box, you would need to close the cabinet, and use the control program to tell it to rotate the boxes around until the one you want is in position. Inside of the large boxes there could be any degree of samller organizers. When putting a lego inside the system, you open up a program on a connected PC, type in the lego part number, type in the box, sub-container, and bin ID, and put the lego in that exact bin. Then later you decide you want to make something you've never made before. You have so many parts stored and inventoried on Peeron that you can go to Peeron and call up the plans for a set you don't even own, and actually have the parts to build it. You take the inventory from Peeron in comma delimited format and import it into the AS/RS program. It looks at the parts and sorts by bin locations, moves the first storage box into position, and gives you a first sub-list of all the parts to pick from the bins in the first box it presents to you. You pick them, and hit continue on the program, and it moves the second storage box into position, giving you the sub-list of all parts that are in various bins inside the second box, and so on until you've picked out all the pieces. Now the system knows you've 'checked out' those parts, and you can at some point in the future reverse the procedure to put them back where they belong.
Another way to use this system is to use the Lego Designer program to build a virtual design. You export the parts list from LDD and put it into the AS/RS program, and again pick all the needed parts out to build your LDD design out of real parts.
Putting new parts into the system would get easier after a while, since you could take a set inventory from Peeron, import it, and the system could try to put all parts from the set that are the same as parts you've already stored into the same bins as those parts. The only time you would ever have to enter a new part number and pick a box and bin for it would be if it were a new part you had never stored before. Of course, once your parts overflow a bin, you would have to move or split those parts to bigger or multiple bins.
I think this is easily built as a dumb organizer, and then with some specialized hardware and programming, the full design envisioned above could be produced.
- Jay
email: jaycephus gmail com
Jay, you may have defined a new market niche for ASRS products!
Here is an easy option for Lego: http://winnermama.blogspot.com/2008/06/kids-klutter-katchers-are-neat-its-pun.html
Another option is a Bricksack. We just started up and would love to hear some feedback.
If I build it, how will I get them to come??
I already have bought fishing tackle organizers, tool boxes, plastic drawer systems on wheels, color coded desktop drawers, plastic shoe boxes, and large rubbermaid bins. They still refuse to organize them, and my life is plagued with the constant cacophony of bin digging. Bribes don't work, threats of the trash can don't either. When they start into a forced organizing mode, they just revert into building mode and there are too many (3 PACKED large rubbermaid bins worth)for me to have the time or mental energy to do it for them!!!
HELP!!
Bricksack, thanks for sharing yet another idea. Good luck with your product!
C.J., what do "they" see as the problem? Does it frustrate them to not be able to find the bricks (or whatever) that they want? If so, maybe you could brainstorm solutions with them.
But if you're the only one who sees a problem, it'll be harder to make changes. In that case, you might still be able to brainstorm with them. If you can identify the problem (the old "When x happens, I feel y" kind of format), maybe all of you can come up with some answer that addresses your concerns.
My problem is I have a rather large and growing LEGO collection that I'm organizing, but no place to keep them.
I end up moving box after box out to the living room and back to the closet any time I want to build, which is a hassle.
I was looking at this cart system for both storing and organizing and building. Whatcha think?
http://www.uline.com/Product/ProductDetail.aspx?Model=H-1496Y&ref=1825&RootChecked=yes
Forgot to click the email followup on the above post. Ignore this.
Mark, nice idea! That looks like it might be an Akro-Mils ProCart.
Here's another type of mobile storage unit with bins.
And here's yet another one.
And another.
OK, I might have to get one of these... Thanks!
I love the Bricksack (www.bricksack.com) for Lego and toy storage! My son has several of them for organizing by different Lego themes (Star Wars, Viking, etc.). We store them all in a toy box. When he wants to play, he just takes out a sack, opens it up (it lays flat on the floor so he can easily see all of the small parts) and he plays for hours. Then when he is finished, he just tosses the few pieces that strayed off the 3 foot circle, back on to the circle and cinches it up like a sack and puts back in the toy box. It's great because it is so easy to clean up, yet it is so easy to see all of the parts when playing. Plus, my son would much rather build on the floor than on a table. My daughter even has a few Bricksacks for her Webkins and Polly Pockets.
Jo, thanks for sharing!
Nice, very nice. I will have to keep an eye on this blog :)
Glad to have you here, Legos for Girls!
o my gosh! My husband is obsessed with lego and the collection is growing bigger and bigger as my children get older and have stopped swallowing the bits.I have lego everywhere. Bricksack sounds good but thinking of creating my own version. Delia
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