When to Organize Lego: By Color or By Category and the Best Way to Store it
EPISODE 5
by Dianne Jimenez
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Do you still have your Lego sets from when you were a kid? Have you been holding onto them since the 80s and 90s, so that you can enjoy them once again with your kids this time?
In this episode we’re talking about Lego. More specifically, organizing it. This beast of a task, and I’ll say this coming from a Lego family w ho’s had 4 different iterations of organizing in the last few years …is crucial if you want your kids to keep building and creating for many years to come, if it’s it’s something they ask for at every birthday or Holiday and… if you care for your feet – then this is an episode you won’t want to miss!
I’ll talk about When to Organize Lego: by color or by category and the best way to store it
Lego – is timeless: from childhood to 99 years young! This is a toy that totally opens up those creative pathways and keeps the generations connected.
Our pile has some original pieces from the 80s that my husband and his brothers played with when they were younger. Since our oldest has come to an age where he can play with Lego without us worrying about him swallowing pieces, the collection has grown exponentially. He’s now 11at the time of this recording. And his siblings have followed the same path.
They request for sets on birthdays and Holidays then there are the surprise ones from my uncle – who, he himself, is a HUGE fan, have contributed to the Lego explosion chez nous.
But who could blame them though? Le go does a really great job at coming up with some awesome and amazing builds. You can’t help but stop at a Lego store to see what’s on display!
Now that the holidays are long gone and over with, whether your kids have just gotten their first set or just added to their growing collection, it’s a good time to establish a really good system so that:
- It’ll be played with often because the pieces are accessible enough and easy to sift through
- That they’re stored in a logical way that promotes creativity and more building, and
- That the pieces don’t get lost or end up with you cursing IN PAIN from that rogue piece that got lodged under your foot.
There are MANY ways of organizing Lego and you’ve probably tried a few of them too, with your own twist added to it.
But I’ll tell you the most common ways of organizing Lego are by EITHER of the 2 Cs: Category or by Color.
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Typically, we go with what’s easiest for us to do OR the one that is easiest to find the pieces. These are ALL good guidelines. But we can take it a step further and ask ourselves FIRST:
WHEN should I organize my Lego by color and WHEN should it be by category?
In November 2020, I decided to take on the task and FINAL stab at organizing the Lego. This would be the 4th version, or attempt, at organizing our massive Lego collection and I’m happy to say at the time of this recording and the release of this episode in early 2022, it will have been well over a year since the big Lego organizing showdown.
If you happen to scroll through my Instagram feed or Facebook Business Page from Dec 2020 to early Jan 2021, you ‘ll see some before and after pics of the whole process. There were MANY late nights of searching and sorting that went well into the wee hours of the morning during that Christmas Holiday. It was intense that whenever I closed my eyes at night, that’s all I saw: Lego.
I’ll post the link to the sorting process in this episode’s show notes or description too!
As mentioned earlier, I did the last big Lego organizing at the tail end of 2020 and the start of 2021. The method we used this time was by category which got broken down even more by type. For example, The vehicle category will have various types of pieces: wheels, chassis, doors, steering wheel, etc. We chose to
Organize by CATEGORY
Reason #1: The size of our collection
For the last 7 years, or since our oldest was 4 years old, we started getting and receiving Lego sets as bday and Christmas gifts from family and friends. As the 2 younger ones each hit the kindergarten level, they too started building from what we had and it wasn’t long before they too were unwrapping gifts with a Lego set inside.
Everyone was getting Lego now, including my husband!
Remember how I told you that Lego connects generations? Well going back… 6 years now, about the same time as my oldest started building Lego sets, we started a tradition with my aunt and uncle that every Friday for the MOST part of the year, we’d meet up at the nearby big mall – Fairview.
We’d have supper, head to Starbucks or 2nd cup , grab a treat for the kids (and something for me too) then off to the Lego store we’d go: admiring the displays, browsing the shelves while sipping our coffees as the kids quickly got their hands in the Lego buckets to start building. I always wondered: how come there was never a bday party place built around this kind of concept? Maybe another project to get into!?
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Anyway, we’d often close up the store with the staff.
This was the weekly tradition since our youngest was in a stroller – unaware of all the fun. He just turned 8. So it’s been awhile… So much so that friends and family have joined our Fairview Friday fun now and again.
6 years – minus the pandemic and only picking it back up at the end of 2021 – all the birthdays, holidays and just-because days… you can imagine the amount of pieces we’ve acquired..
So because of the size we opted to organize it all by category.
Reason #2: Our kids are old enough to read the chart
My husband, Onnig, found this website about Lego organizing called the Bbrickarchitect.com created by Tom Alphin. Aside from sharing in-depth Lego Stories with Lego Fans, he has a FULL and very detailed explanation of organizing Lego under the Lego Storage Guide tab.. From differentiating the categories and types, to various storage solutions and collection sizes to labels. etc. It’s quite extensive and very impressive on how much information he provides. I’ll put the link for the Lego Storage Guide in my show notes so you can check it out right away.
Onnig had printed out the chart pertaining to our collection size. At this point, we needed to do something. The kids were barely playing with it anymore because for the longest time, to ease the clean up – we ended up dumping 10s of thousands of pieces in a large 26 gallon Sterilite clear plastic container. We had a couple of clear plastic shoe boxes for other pieces. Either stuff they were working on or just … a pile of random pieces.
Bottom line, it wasn’t being played with at all and I was torn because, if they were barely playing with it, then why the heck are we keeping all of this???
We had to do something. This was a lot of Lego. It would’ve been a madness to sift through the 26 gallon container to look for all the pieces to complete a collection to either sell or donate. It wouldn’t make sense to get rid of partial sets.
And if we were identifying ourselves as a Lego family, why weren’t we living by it?
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Reason #3: It would be EASIER to find the pieces you need
You’ll know exactly where to go when you need a basic 2 by 3 brick among bricks, hinges in the box of hinges or the missing hand in the box of mini figures.
If we organize by color, it would take a lot longer to look for a flat red 2 by 3 piece, in a box filled with hundreds of different shapes, sizes and textures that were all red.
No, that wouldn’t be efficient at all when your collection has many categories. So this brings me to
Organizing BY COLOR
Reason #1: Organizing by color works best if you have a decent size collection
Now I know this is very subjective. If you think about separating by category and you end up with many boxes with very few items inside… then by category isn’t the way to go. Make sure you check out the Lego Storage Guide in the brickarchitect.com for details.
Organizing by color also works best if cleaning up is your nemesis
Reason #2: Sorting by color is a quick and simple cleanup solution
ANYONE who comes over to your house, the kids’ friends, your in-laws or parents – anyone can easily understand that all the yellow pieces go together, all the green go there, etc. Making tidying up, a snap!
Reason #3: Depends on your kid’s age, focus level and independence
You know your kids best.
So this is all about them: what’s easiest and simplest for them to understand when it comes to retrieval and putting away?
If you’re unsure, check out the Brick Architect. I can’t say enough of how detailed they are here. Follow the tabs at the top and on the left hand side. It’s a great reference to have. I’m barely scratching the surface of how they go about it.
My 3 criteria when organizing by color that I mentioned just a bit ago: collection size, easy cleanup by anyone and understanding your kids’ level is what I tell my clients, family and friends. Ok, back to organizing by color.
You know at the back of the Lego store? There are these circular containers organized by color and type along the wall? It’s very beautiful and easy to grab what you need. It’s the same idea for this type of organizing solution. Kids and parents can easily and quickly grab pieces by color vs. digging through a box with multiple pieces and colors that Lego has to offer.
It’s distracting and you need a certain amount of FOCUS to filter through the rest of the pieces to find the right one you need.
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Here’s another way of looking at it: will they know right away the difference between curved and angled? Technic vs regular vehicle parts? Sockets, hinges and clips? These can get really tricky.
And without proper identification, and enough exposure and experience with the different pieces, it can get overwhelming real fast!
And they won’t want to play with it anymore. It’s too hard to put away or even start! With time, the kids will certainly grow and their interest and creativity will develop too. And with that, your collection may even grow! So to transition from 1 method to the next can be smooth by incorporating a HYBRID version of organizing.
I know I mentioned that we followed the brick architect system, we do – about 98-% of it. The rest we came up with our own system: it’s a hybrid of the brick architect’s guide.
So for example, we have a clear shoe box size for the 1 by 1s. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cone shape (that’s an angle type), a 1 by 1 (that’s basic shape) or a 1 by 1 with a hole through it (I think that’s Technic or maybe a S.N.O.T piece). It’s too complex so, it all goes in 1 box – regardless of type.
Basically, if the piece occupies a 1 dot or space, it’s considered a 1 by 1. This is really easy for my kids to understand.
Next, we have another box of the same size, where we put all the lines, rods and bars. For us it’s just less time consuming to find a small straight line/rod within its own kind vs, in a box filled with curved pieces.
Again, this is another very easy thing the kids can identify, understand and follow. (I’ll link to a picture of all of this in my show notes, don’t worry if I’ve lost you!)
Another thing is, all of our bins have lids or a top so they are easily stackable! Which brings me to my final part
How do we store all of the Lego?
Spacious, good size compartments that’s big enough but not too deep that it’s like an abyss, or too shallow, things fall out and get lost (or worse, stepped on!).
Side note, in ALL our years of having Lego in the house, I think Onnig and I have stepped on a piece or 2 , each, maybe less than a handful of times?
So back to our organizing needs:
- It had to be clean looking and streamlined
- Absolutely kid friendly and kid proof a must – meaning:
- easy to identify items
- can be used by little hands
- won’t topple over easily,
- won’t create a bigger mess than the actual playing time
- Absolutely kid friendly and kid proof a must – meaning:
These were among our top needs for an organizing solution.
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I’ve seen a variety of storage solutions like Ikea’s Trofast collection (I’ll link this in my show notes as well so you know what I’m talking about). This is great for a smaller or decent size collection. Just need to be careful though, the bins can be pulled out easily so watch those toes!
In many mom and organizing Facebook groups I’ve also seen, they store their Lego in 1 or several of those basic, square bins made of fabric. They fit into the Ikea Kallax system. They sell them everywhere. I’ll link this in my show notes as well so you know what I’m talking about.
This is also a great storage solution for a decent size collection and the clean-look of uniform colored boxes is easy on the eyes.
For our early iterations, we’ve used a combo of several plastic bins in various sizes from shoe box size to the large, flat, under the bed- type containers to big bins. We’ve actually had this setup on version 2 of our Lego organizing early on and it didn’t work for us.
Storing bins one on top of the other isn’t practical for kids.
- it’s dangerous if they try to pull something from overhead
- it’s daunting to see a tower of bins filled with Lego.
And if your 4 year old isn’t intimidated by that? Or maybe it’s something totally interesting for them. Well then it’s back to my first point: it’s dangerous!
Also, it’s not practical to keep having to rotate the bins and then hoist everything back up to save on floor space. Sure it looks nice and neat when everything’s put away, but when you’re just too tired to clean everything up? Ugh… what an eyesore!
So from multiple boxes of various sizes came our 2nd to last solution: dumping everything in a 26 gallon bin. It got filled to the top and we still needed more space. So we kept a few shoe boxes to store random pieces in each box.
That’s it. No system.
They barely played with ANY of it. Just a few favorite pieces like his shark. Oh Kai was SO big into sharks when he was small. At one point the bottom jaw came loose…
and he lost it somewhere in the giant box of Lego that could fit him and his baby brother inside – no we didn’t try that…
It was so sad. He’d bring this mouthless shark everywhere… we didn’t bother looking for that 1 piece in a bin that housed thousands of pieces. It would’ve been maddening!
Something had to change.
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So this time around, the solution was a mix of what we had before: the clear shoe boxes with lids AND…. a drawer system!
Yup, on top of the needs I mentioned earlier: kid friendly, clean and sturdy, containers not too deep/ shallow, etc. the other thing we had to consider was location. We only had a certain section in our basement where we can house the Lego. And because of the size of our collection and the different types of pieces we had, our choice was the Sterilite 3 drawer cart – without the casters installed to avoid everything rolling around. This thing had to be sturdy.
In all, we got a total of 12 drawers: 3 high and 4 across. I use small containers with lids from the dollar store for the really tiny specialty pieces that each Lego category has. (Don’t worry, I’ll link the picture of our setup in the show notes so you get the whole idea).
Just so you know, the links provided are not affiliate links. I’m just sharing what I use, seen and has worked for us!
Ouf! That was a HUGE episode. I hope you found it helpful for your Lego organizing journey. Specifically, if you’re wanting to organize your Lego collection. It’s a whole animal that deserves the special storage and attention it needs.
Now that you know the difference between when to organize your Lego pieces: by type or by color, tell me sweet listener, which method would work for your Lego-building family?
Put them in the comments below this episode or send me an email at info@diannejimenez.com. I can’t wait to hear from you.
Alright. Thank you so much for being here and taking time to be here with me today – I appreciate it SO much. See you back here next week, same time?
Awesome. See you then!
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