Organization

[PorteusMaximus]

OK, this is my first post... ever. So here it goes...

How do you organize your Lego collection? I'm talking storage tubs, bags, card catalogs, tables, rooms... whatever. I feel like I have my mini figures under control, but the bricks are a different story. So...

Do you sort by color, size... and what do you put them in? Or, are they just thrown in a giant box and spilled on the floor? Pictures or links would be nice. I'm trying to better organize my bricks, now that I have a place of my own and can do that kind of cool stuff.

Oh, and I just love this site, and the community here. The people here and your creations are absolutly awesome. I have actually been a LUGNET member since college, I just never had the guts to post anything. So let me know what your organizational skills look like!

[Jojo]

Hello!


I'm sorting by size and by colour. I separated all light grey bricks and sorted them by shape (only bricks, 6×X plates and 4×X plates, not slopes and small plates). The other coloured bricks, plates and slopes are sorted by shape. - You can always pick a black 1x2 plate in a pile of 1x2 plates, but try to find a black 1x2 plate in a pile of black bricks of all shapes :-)




Bye
Jojo

[David Girard]

Nice collection, Jojo !
I don't have as much Lego. I had about 1m cube of Lego.

I store them in "ziploc" bag, by shape and color depending of the pieces. I separate Lego Castle sets from this storage system, however.

But I'd like to have a better storage than plastic bag. They tend to be used quickly.

[SirCumferance]

How do you organize your Lego collection? I'm talking storage tubs, bags, card catalogs, tables, rooms... whatever. I feel like I have my mini figures under control, but the bricks are a different story. So...

Do you sort by color, size... and what do you put them in? Or, are they just thrown in a giant box and spilled on the floor? Pictures or links would be nice. I'm trying to better organize my bricks, now that I have a place of my own and can do that kind of cool stuff.

Well, it depends on what theme you are going with. With castle, you would probly sort all your "basic" bricks by coulour. If you were a Spacer, then you would sort differently. But with me, I don't realy go by any theme, I like them all, and I don't have that large of a collection; so I just sort by type. I have two big boxes full of little drawers. I wish I could give a picture! But if you haven't started sorting now, I think you should just take your big box and organize your pieces by type in Ziploc bags. Then get a divider of some sort and put them where you want them! Hope this helps!

[Bruce N H]

Hey,

Here's how I sort:
http://www.ozbricks.com/bricktales/sort/sort.html

There are a lot of pictures of other people's systems in the lugnet.storage sidebar:
http://news.lugnet.com/storage

Bruce

[LEGOFREAK]

OK, this is my first post... ever. So here it goes...

Ok - I ain't official, but this is an awesome first post, and please feel free to share as much as you like. There is always a lot of healthy discussion on most posts here, and the admins and gongfarmers (everyone below admin according to ben e ) encourage community communication.

ok - that being said - back on topic.

I have been collecting lego since i was a small child, and have always used the big box method. You get big box and fill it with lego.
However, the older I got the more I wanted to be able to find specific pieces. Especially when I wanted to build something out of one color. SO I now had seven boxes.. the main colors and one for odds and ends.
That didnt cut it either.
Now I have them sorted similar to jojo's color and shape.
I also have several boxes for specific parts. Wheels, rounds, space parts, BURPS and LURPS, foliage.. etc.

since I would rather spend my money on lego than storage, I mostly use whatever cardboard boxes I can find of a similar shape. (I worked for a pizza place for awhile and the cheese boxes were perfect )

So my advice to you? Use what works for you. SOME people may not have any problem finding a 1*2 black plate in a big box full of black.... I am just not one of them.

Happy sorting.

[Jedipawn]

PorteusMaximus said:

OK, this is my first post... ever. So here it goes...

How do you organize your Lego collection?

First of all, Welcome!!! Now, I sort my pieces by shape, 1x2 brick, 1x4plate... etc... I have several sections of specialty pieces, castle walls, wheels, hinges, and so on. I keep both dark, and light gray seperate, along with the Star Wars pieces. For storage, I use a tub system from Lowes, plastic tubs that hang on a rack attached to the wall. It works very well. When I fill a tub to full to find anything in, I seperate it into 3 or 4 others, sorting by color...

It seems to work very well, and has the advantige of being expandable with out a lot of fuss.

Jedipawn

[TwoTonic Knight]

I give my completed Lego sets to my son. He then reduces them to their component parts (some might call it play). These pathetic remains are in turn dumped into a big stackable plastic crate so I don't have the Lego Logo imprinted on my foot. Periodically I go on "mining" missions to retrieve Castle stuff - just today I found three more Dragon Master figs (35 total), a Blue pirate soldier, a whole bunch of foilage, four trolls, and a Triceratops with a Howdah (that's where the Dragon Masters were perched), a ninth white dragon crest, a shooting cannon in a rare blue carriage, and an intermediate non-shooting-but-convertible cannon in a rare green carriage, a Black Falcon fig, a KK Leo fig, and other assorted odds and ends.

This stuff is broken down by type, and possibly further broken down by color, into stackable plastic containers (Rubbermaid) a little smaller than a shoebox. Really small parts are put into smaller stackable plastic containers that I can get from the super market (Ziploc - but their containers, not baggies) that I can put into the Rubbermaid containers (all the helmet crests, all the swords, all the bows and quivers, all the pirate hats, all the Castle headgear, etc.).

[Troy]

Here is how I store my stuff:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=42912

Troy

[SirCumferance]

Holy crap you have a lot of nice pieces! Like those Technic 1x1s... nice. You organize kind of like the way I do.

[Charlie]

Wow, Troy, you probably have more money in storage bins than I do in Lego all together

[Lord_Of_The_LEGO]

I sort my LEGO by parts, by color if there is ALOT of them.

http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/lordo ... orting.jpg

[Bricksidge]

Here is how I organize...

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=72486

It's a bit of a work on progress, but it works for me.

It's a combination of bins, bags, and drawer units. The drawers are seperated by part type, each drawer has dividers, and then all the drawers are organized in a logical fashion (car parts, small clips, architectural elements, wheels, etc) The shoebox-size bins are a new addition, got on sale after the holiday season.

There is a lot left to be sorted, I will probably get another drawer unit in the months ahead.

[lemon_squeezer2]

Well with a 9 year old sister and a two year old brother, it is virtually imposible to organize my legos . However, I have been able to have most of my castle pieces in a bucket by themselves

[David Girard]

Because of this topic, I decided myself last weekend to buy decent storage for my Lego. My "ziploc" bag were too much used. I build plastic storage box like many of you have. It's far more better.

It cost me 80$can. Ouch !

I don't have picture, however.