Lost in Lego?

It is no secret we love Lego at my house. Keeping it under control, easily accessible, easy to play and build with and out from under foot, is a work in progress.  I thought I'd share our Lego corner with you - it has been working for us for awhile.

Since that's where all the Lego building action is, we will be starting at the ground for our tour.   (Just FYI I'm going to note my resources for supplies, but I don't have any sponsors for the post) My sister Joanna sent us the labels for the shoe bins (from the Container Store ~20 bins for $35, I really love these boxes, with clear lids they are super durable and stack really well).  We have our Lego sorted by colour and then a few sets are in bins by themselves and a few by theme - Star Wars, Lego Agents, Harry Potter, Atlantis or whatever.  These bins are labeled with stickers and pictures from Lego.com.  The blue bin (other colours too and comes with a base plate) is available at Amazon.com (which we actually found at a thrift store) is for any mini-figures and accessories, often a built police car or certain small specialty pieces.

Next above the storage bins are the tables and shelving (thanks Ikea $10 LACK tables and EKBY BJÄRNUM Shelves).  I learned it is pretty important to have lots of display and play area for creations.  It helps keep things off the floor and they love to show what they are working on to everyone who comes over.  The creations tend to move around a lot on the shelves and are changed often.  Bigger sets like the Atlantis fortress are more fun to play with and I do less repairs when they are off the ground.  The tables are also great because they are mobile and can be moved to the middle of the room or another wall (two was kind of important to have once for each boy, one just didn't have enough elbow room).

I actually put up the shelves completely by myself and I'm not very handy. I liked this system because of the 1) Style is industrial/boyish 2) Price 3) Custom - You decide the length of shelves (I got 3 smaller shelves from one board purchased) and there are two depths to choose from 4) No painting, the ends are covered by the bracket.

The sorted by colour system seems to work for us.  Once a project has been disassembled the pieces can be found in their matching colour, we've been able to rebuild sets easily from the instructions. It can take a little work to re-sort after a massive building session, but it is worth it and the boys are getting speedier.  I promise it doesn't always look like this...maybe one of these posts I'll show you and action shot :)

Oh not pictured we have a binder 3-ring binder with plastic sleeves to store the instructions for the sets, it makes them easy to find and flip through and keeps them from losing pages.

I'd love to know what works for you to organize toys - Lego or otherwise, Any thoughts?

Happy Building!