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3 LEGO Storage Solutions for Large Collections

Tired of stepping on LEGO pieces? Here are three LEGO storage solutions for your child's large collection that will get them organized.

lego storage ideas for large collections

It's official. The playroom has been overtaken by LEGO. Somehow, our son has accumulated thousands upon thousands of these little plastic pieces. To prevent them from getting stepped on or lost forever, I needed to come up with a new Lego storage solution, stat!

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Our previous LEGO storage situation involved separating the pieces by set and keeping them each in their own labeled box in a storage tower similar to this one.

Iris storage tower

We even added an additional, smaller one on top for even more storage. You can see them in the corner of his DIY Lego table set up below.

DIY lego table with storage

We have far more than six sets now, and there are more than six colors of LEGO, so we needed even more storage. I picked up a huge 1600 piece box of random pieces, and we were tossing every loose Lego we find into the box. If our son is looking for one piece to finish a creation, he needed to dump the entire box onto the floor and sift through it.

lego pieces dumped on floor from large box

So I started researching a new LEGO storage system. A lot of the great ideas I found either were made for a smaller collection or didn't allow for the level of OCD organization I was looking for. I wanted to sort by color, and to some extent, size and shape. I narrowed it down to these three options.

Lego Storage Option 1: Small Parts Drawer Cabinet

small parts drawer cabinet

This one has lots of drawers in two different sizes, so he can separate the larger pieces from the smaller ones and sort by color. It comes in either black or red and gray, which matches his brightly colored decor.

The drawers can be removed if he's building something with a lot of one color, or he can pull a drawer open to grab a single LEGO without disturbing the others. It can be mounted on the wall or kept on top of his desk.

I attached a brick to the front of each drawer with double sided tape to make it easier to find the part he needs.

Lego sorted by color into a small parts drawer cabinet with a Lego piece attached to each drawer for reference

Lego Storage Option 2Wall Mount Parts Rack

Wall mount parts rack with removable bins

There are lots of different versions of these kinds of bins on the market, but I liked these because there are multiple sizes in bright colors.

Lego Storage Option 3: IKEA Trofast

IKEA Trofast storage unit with natural wood frame and green bins

It became clear pretty quickly that our son wasn't going to sort his Lego pieces with any resemblance of organization! He just needed places to quickly spot what he was looking for in his vast collection.

I bought two IKEA Trofast drawer units like the one above, put them on wheels and turned them into giant Lego bricks! You can check out the full tutorial on how to make this IKEA Lego table here.

two IKEA Lego tables made from IKEA Trofast drawer units, made to look like giant Lego bricks

Eventually he even outgrew this huge Lego set up, so I added a DIY Lego desk to the room as well. This gives him tons of space to build, and fifteen bins for storage.

DIY Lego desk

These DIY drawer dividers keep the parts separated for more granular organization. We keep the same color family within the drawer, and sort them by size and shape with the dividers.

Lego desk bins with organized pieces

The Ultimate Lego Storage and Organization Set up

Remember this scene from The Lego Movie? 

Lego Movie set with Lego storage bins on desk

Legoland California had the actual set, all exactly as it was in the dad's basement. We went back to it three times during our stay so we our son could check out every detail.

Check out these other Lego storage ideas!

Sarah @ Accidentally Crunchy

Tuesday 27th of December 2016

I LOVE organizing LEGO :D

I found that the GLIS boxes from Ikea (which are super cheap) are a great solution for us so far. We have 5 of them I think and just stack them on top of each other and have colour themes for each box.

Here's a pic of ours so far (my son is 5! I shudder to think what it will look like 5 years from now!)

I tried to use a link shortener but it wouldn't pass the spam filter, sorry! https://fb-s-b-a.akamaihd.net/h-ak-xpt1/v/t1.0-9/14955851_10157724801750608_8566900177490330823_n.jpg?oh=1290e8042193355563225a27c04b9536&oe=58D8AE2A&__gda__=1491251661_1abae140f37a9ad923670c37f4b0f3a5

Vineta

Tuesday 27th of December 2016

Wow, those look like they would work really well too! Our son is 8, and it seems like his collection grows exponentially every year. We need to re-sort his pieces now that he got a new haul for Christmas!

Lynn Spencer

Wednesday 15th of June 2016

Holy Cow, as a mom of a 16-year old young man who spent many years buried in (and loving every minute of it) in legos, I finally gave up 'organizing' them. My son had no interest in sorting the pieces by color, shape, size, project or any other metric. My final solution was to make a huge circle drawstring bag that we could just cinch up, containing all the legos, and store until such time as we needed to lay it out again...which was often. I have a very soft spot in my heart for legos...they are a fantastic toy and I think fondly to those days when my little boy would sit for hours letting his imagination hold sway.

So glad you found a storage solution that works for your lego-master. Thanks for sharing this oldie but goodie with us today. Hugs, Lynn

Andrea Negron

Tuesday 29th of December 2015

I'm trying to get a handle on how many legos fit inside of the container you purchased. I have an original bucket style container and it is overflowing.

http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m2RxGU7fwkXDiiFqhbLhzGA.jpg

How does that compare to your son's collection? Should I be getting one or two? Love this solution!

The Handyman's Daughter

Wednesday 30th of December 2015

Thanks Andrea! I would suggest getting two. The one we have got filled up pretty quickly, and his big box wasn't full to the top because most of the bigger pieces are already in use. Once he breaks down an old creation, the one storage unit can't hold all the pieces. I need to buy another one, especially after seeing how many new Lego pieces he got for Christmas! Good luck sorting them all out!

Margaret L.

Thursday 24th of December 2015

What a great system! I'm curious about whether your son has maintained it. I've been trying to decide if it is worth it to separate all the pieces out of my son's big tubs. Does your son sort things back into the different bins or do you end up doing that?

The Handyman's Daughter

Saturday 26th of December 2015

Honestly, most of the things he creates from the bins stick around for a while in their built form. Every once in a while I'll ask if something can be taken apart if he's not playing with it, but usually the answer is no! He's gotten a bunch of new Legos for Christmas, so I'll be prodding him to sort all his old ones away.

Tori

Friday 18th of December 2015

I like the clear bins...but, I think I would E-6000 one lego piece to the front of each drawer so my son could just glance and know exactly which lego piece was inside. They can look kinda the same through the outside of the drawer (other than color).

The Handyman's Daughter

Friday 18th of December 2015

I thought of doing something like that, but when I suggested to my son that we sacrifice a Lego piece for each box, he looked horrified! For now, I just put a label on each box that says "1x2" or "2x2" so he knows the size, and he can see the color through the front.

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