I’ve had a few folks ask me how I sort and store my Legos, so – without further ado – here is what worked for me.
When I was researching a good storage system, I ended up going to Ikea and picking the TROFAST storage drawers. By the way, when going to Ikea, it’s a good idea to stop at the food court and eat some Swedish meatballs (with Lingonberry jelly). Also, be sure to hydrate yourself. Navigating the advanced “corn maze” that is the show floor can be intimidating, and you do not want your blood sugar getting out of whack as you inevitably get lost. That said, the drawers we are looking for are in the Children’s section. If you do not have a Hipster Wal-mart nearby, you could try The Container Store or some other place, the main thing is finding drawers that are of a decent size, are semi-transparent (ideally) and can easily be taken out and placed back as needed.
As you can see here, this particular TROFAST frame holds nine drawers. They also make deeper drawers that are two to three times taller, and I use one of those to store my city road and space plates. I went with the white semi-transparent drawers to make it easier to quickly see what color bricks any drawer is holding.
In general, I sort by color, so that means drawers for White, Grey, Black, Blue, Yellow and Red.
I then designate a drawer for tires and wheels, a drawer for all Minifigs – including tools and accessories, a drawer for transparent glass and windows, and a drawer for odd pieces – like trees, flowers, flags, road signs, boat sections, motors, lights and power bricks.
After that, I fill a drawer with the newer colors that aren’t the standard ones from the 70s and 80s, such as dark grey, orange, green and brown (I nickname this the Star Wars Drawer).
Then a drawer for instructions and a deep drawer for base plates, as I previously mentioned, and that was pretty much my initial set up.
Later – particularly when I started building all these Space sets – I started to consolidate some of the fancier pieces into their own drawers to prevent me from having to dig all the time. I now have a drawer that has all of my pieces with stuff printed on it, be it a number, a grill, or the Space logo. I also store my parts that are obviously Space pieces in the same drawer, as there is overlap, and it really saved time. I also filled a drawer with all the pieces that have hinges or moving parts, including steering wheels and car doors.
Then, continuing with this line of thinking, if parts obviously go with wheels – like tire rims and car chassis – I put them in the wheel drawer.
You’ll find out that, much like a Venn diagram, many parts could go into more than one drawer, that’s just a judgment call you’ll have to make. You don’t need to follow what made sense for me, but in general, I sorted stuff I was always looking for into their own drawers, without going overboard. You could easily end up sorting stuff into too many tiny drawers, and find yourself staring at a wall of little drawers like you were hunting for a screw at Home Depot. I only have 15 drawers (and one big one) and it’s reasonably manageable.
So, if you’ve been keeping track, you may have noticed that the TROFAST frame holds nine drawers, and I use almost twice as much. I actually use two frames side by side, making a square-ish rectangle with drawers on either side. It saves space and makes a decent top for a small Legoland.
I hope this has been helpful to fellow lapsed Legomaniacs out there, looking for tips on how to store their bricks!
Cheers,
Ben