What to do when your son or daughter suddenly has a lot of Legos (thank you, Christmas) and they are ALL OVER THE PLACE? Well, if you're anything like me, you find an organized solution ASAP. I checked Google and Pinterest for ideas and decided that the best solution for us would be to organize Legos by color. While organizing by set is ideal for some, it just wouldn't work for us, as pieces from the different sets were all mixed together almost as soon as the packages were opened. There was no way to know which piece belonged to which set until they would actually start building something. It's proved to be much easier to find pieces by color.
I also wanted to dedicate a space in my son's room for Legos. Somewhere that he could build and store them would be perfect. We needed a desk. Off to Target I went. I picked up a small desk with two drawers. Luckily for us, it fit perfectly next to the bunk beds! I also added an IKEA shelf that was sitting in the basement waiting to be used after it got the boot from my daughters' room. I brought up a lonely chair from the basement as well and voila, a perfect little spot for Legos!
The shelf above his desk holds a few things. I put instruction booklets in three of the bins. This is working fine until I find a better solution for them, possibly in a binder. Another bin holds his Angry Birds "Legos." I am keeping them separate because they are not by the Lego brand and have a slightly different look and size to them. I also put his Angry Birds and the pigs in here as well. They are not Legos, but he plays with them often. I labeled the bins with vinyl, which I cut with my Silhouette Cameo.
I purchased a set of Steralite drawers from Target as well. This is where I organized the Legos by color. At this time, the colors that he has the most of, made it into these drawers. The other colors are in the desk drawers. I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the letters for the drawer labels and I used Mod Podge to affix them. I found that I will be able to remove them should I ever want to change out which colors we keep in here. I also have another set of drawers waiting just in case his collection become much larger and we need more storage.
Like I said, the remainder of the colors are in the desk drawers. I used a drawer divider to separate them. In the other desk drawer is another divider with all of the people, animals, hats, heads, capes, etc.
We have had this setup for over a month now and it's working perfectly. My son really enjoys having them organized by color and he can usually be found at his desk. Works in progress are typically all over the desktop and pieces do end up on the floor or in the wrong color bins, but it's a quick fix when we want to get everything straightened back up. It turned out fabulous!
My daughter also has a few sets of Legos. While she isn't as crazy about them as my son is, I still wanted a way to keep them organized. We decided to go with some small stackable bins and a few plastic shoe containers. These are also from Target. Seriously, do I shop anywhere else?! We organized them and decided to keep the bins in her closet on her shoe rack. I didn't opt for labels on these, especially because the top bins have a variety of colors in them. That's not to say I won't label them in the future. I love labels. Anyway, it was a quick and easy solution for her Lego collection and we love it!
Organized Legos = a happy mommy. A really, really, really happy mommy! Yay!