Organising your LEGO collection

As of a house move four years ago my Lego storage solution has been “the armada of boxes up in the attic”. I tried to arrange them via theme, so most of the castles have ended up with each other, a lot of the space stuff has gone together etc but sometimes it was just “which crate will this actually fit this?”
The loose spares I’ve got in baggies, in a more easily accessible box towards the front of the crowd, sorted in various ways (all cheese slopes here, all weaponry here, smaller stuff here, mid sized stuff there…)

@WizardOfOss said:
"As terrible as sorting by color is, it's still better than what happens with most of my (new) stuff: Throw it just all in a box, not sorted in any way...."

I have found one small area in which sorting by color helps. I recently got a mid-sized bin of vintage stuff. Given that the vast majority of my collection is vintage, if I sort it into drawers and bags, it just joins the rest of the mess and I can't figure out what I have. Since I often want to get most things sorted by what I have most of the parts for, it's very handy to go through and build as much as I can. I used a few spare drawer units to sort by color (lot fewer vintage colors) and then build 90% of the sets from it.

I 100% agree that sorting by type is by far best when it comes to building, but this was a very handy situation where I could build a set 98% of the way and then grab the parts I couldn't find from the color sort out of my primary inventory. Now I've got them all inventoried, I know if anything is still missing, and the remaining parts from sets I don't care about/can't identify are fine to go into the primary inventory.

By color, here--I'm not hard core enough to do by type (other than technic bits). But that's the spare pieces. Most of my collection is stored by set, bagged. Waiting for the day I have the space to display more than a couple shelves worth... Until then, I rotate things in and out.

Yes
No currently I just put all extra parts in a bag (having fun) before that just parted them.
Yes
Yes/no I just have to much lego
Yes
No
Yes/no I knew I already owned that set, but forgot how many.
No but sometimes I am unaware that a part has become explensive

I feed my OCD by storing most parts in Aldi Workzone storage drawers. Sorted by part number, of course, from left to right along the long wall of my garage. unbuilt sets are stored in Really Useful boxes along the opposite long wall of my garage, with all set locations stored on a spreadsheet for easy retrieval. My car has to stay on the drive.

My brothers and I sorted by color years ago since we would typically build in only a couple of colors at a time. Then we sorted by part within the color. Certain colors don't have enough parts to be sorted into multiple bags. I've thought about changing it, but I just don't think it makes sense right now. I ended up combining the greys, white, and black since those colors were the hardest to find parts for. At this point I mostly build with a nature palette, so I don't build with black very much.

I don't build a lot, and a part of that is how my system is organized and the lack of space. My parts are all in ziplock bags in a massive box on the floor. Whenever I want to build I have to use the floor. I like building micros so that has made me make a separate set of small bags. I'm not sure it will work very well.

Regarding parts to old sets, we bought a large bulk lot years ago. We had parts from ice planet(not enough in my opinion!), rock raiders, adventurers, world city(a trans green window), and the very large quarter circular parts to the original millennium falcon. I ended up selling/giving away most of the large parts since I would never use them. I'm at a point where I'm pretty picky about what pieces I add to my collection due to space.

Me ha sucedido todos los puntos que se han marcado al inicio del hilo. Incluso comprar dos veces un juego porque me había olvidado que ya lo había comprado.

Ooh I've been thinking about plan chests for brick storage for a while now, can't wait to see how that goes.

I also just had a straight-up ruthless purge of instructions which was very hard to do, but the fact that modern booklets are so big, with glued spines and thin flimsy paper did make it easier. Most of what I cleared out was new sets, especially ones I'll keep but don't have strong emotional attachment to.

I have a Lego room which is nearly two years old. Ikea tables for display along walls and in the middle of the room, boxes underneath as moves have dictated need to keep boxes for dismantling and rebuilding, a tall bookcase full of smaller boxes. One wall is a mess of boxes waiting a table which I plan to have the map and skylines above, which will free up space in my bedroom for some sets and the display table in the middle of the Lego room.

I plan on getting some room dividers for the art, which is just piling alongside the bookcase at the moment.

The side wall of boxes is also waiting for some more Lego storage boxes for sets that don't have boxes. I do plan to sell some sets, but it seems to take awhile for new gwps to go, let alone used, that I'm stalling on that front. They're not valuable ones, I was never that smart.

I have a lot built, the most for a while, I dread taking them apart if I have to move again, which has been a lot, if feels like.

Meanwhile the list for purchase grows....

@AverageChimaEnjoyer said:
"Sorry, but... you'd have to be an obsessive LEGO collector if you accidentally buy a copy of a set you already own"
To be honest it has also happened to me from time to time.
Sometimes when there are extremely good discounts I buy sets for parts only, and put them into storage. Occasionally I then forget about them after a while, and when I see another extremely good deal say two years later I may have forgotten about having already bought the set.
I am sometimes surprised when I see that I actually own a set that comes up as RSOTD.

But as for the article itself, I find the subject highly fascinating. One of the reasons why I have cut down on my commenting recently is that I really need time to get my LEGO chaos more in order. Right now it's a total mess.

@AverageChimaEnjoyer said:
"Sorry, but... you'd have to be an obsessive LEGO collector if you accidentally buy a copy of a set you already own"

Yup. Unless I win lotto and buy a ton of Lego which I can't keep track of, I don't think that i'll ever accidentally purchase another copy of a set I already own.

I used to have all my parts in one big container. I decided to colour code them and put them in plastic shelves or ice-cream containers. It works OK, but sometimes when I'm trying to find a part of a certain colour, it is hard to do so because they are all the same colour, which is why I want to sort them by part type.

Alright. Very helpful in my planning for storage. Step 1; wait 20 years for my children to kove out of the house
Step 2; use spare room to store LEGO.

Simple

My Lego room's in a bit of a state, but it's not my fault - I had all of my non-prequel Star Wars sets shelved in perfect chronological order, from Solo through to Rise of Skywalker, and then they went and started making tv shows between movies. I managed to nudge the Battle of Endor and the Jakku raid sideways enough to cram in the Razor Crest and Gideon's cruiser, but damned if I can see how I'm going to get Boba Fett's version of Jabba's throne room in there, and that's been acting as a kind of mental block against organising anything else until I magic up a solution.

@AverageChimaEnjoyer said:
"Sorry, but... you'd have to be an obsessive LEGO collector if you accidentally buy a copy of a set you already own"

That's me, then. But mostly just scatterbrained and forget to LOG IN to brickset when I'm at the LEGO store checking if I have a set already.

Regarding the first picture at the top of the article: who gave you permission to photograph my Lego room?!?

Just kidding, great progress on your space. Love the LEGO logo on the closet doors, it looks fantastic.

@HoMa The LUGNET 707 article is still a great read after more than 20 years. The AFOL storage experience will never change!

I keep all my sets (and their extra pieces) stored in their original boxes (or baggies if I don't have the box). My smallish collection of loose parts (gonna build me those Classic Space MOCs rattling around in my head one of these years!) is stored by type/color in Akro-Mills, Sterlite, and Really Useful Boxes.

My LEGO storage room is the end wall of our multicar garage and a little down one side. And some in the middle garage (previous owner liked to restore old cars). And some in tubs in the back shed. And in our library. And in the family room.

Um... I may have a little problem.

@AverageChimaEnjoyer said:
"Sorry, but... you'd have to be an obsessive LEGO collector if you accidentally buy a copy of a set you already own"

This can be easily avoided just by capturing sets on Brickset and checking purchases accordingly ;-)

I am jealous, I don't have a room for my Lego. In fact is has been distributed around my house in several rooms. Some complete sets are on display in my bedroom or else in huge plastic boxes while others are in pieces in boxes stored in a guest bedroom.
But I am impressed with Lego fans who have rooms like the one in the article. And it is still my dream to dedicate one of the rooms entirely to my Lego collection in time.

My kids are now of an age where LEGO is not their thing at the moment so I recently took it upon myself to sort out the many crates of part built/part destroyed sets, mixed up minifig parts and badly broken down sets they had amassed over the years.

My own sets have always been built for a while and then broken down and bagged in ziploc bags in plastic storage crates so I went the same way with theirs while sorting my own out into themed crates with theirs along the way.

As for spare or unused pieces, they are sorted by piece type (and then by colour if enough like basic bricks) in a series of 23 DIY/craft storage trays and one plastic crate for the basic bricks and baseplates. (My collection spreadsheet has 'maps' of each tray so I can find pieces easily if needed - these were invaluable when filling the gaps in the kids sets!)

When sorting out all the sets I took the decision to separate the minifigs and bag them separately (I harbour hopes of a huge minifig display at some point somewhere in the house!) so I also have 6 of the 2x4 LEGO storage bricks with minifigs bagged individually and then by theme.

The next job is to sort out the crate full of instructions into some sort of order - I have a large Ikea Alex set of drawers in the loft earmarked for at least some of these.

Built sets are dotted around the house, some on my work desk, some in the spare bedroom and some on various shelves around the house. Unbuilt sets are stored in larger cardboard boxes in the loft....although I seem to creating mini stockpiles in other spaces around the house.....this speaks to the 'limit new purchases' element of the original article! :)

I used Brickset to make notes as I progressed but then downloaded the results to a spreadsheet for local access and have since realised that, in doing so, I have created an ongoing update task for myself every time I move, build or break down a set....I will update Brickset as I go along but then monthly will download updated data and update that local spreadsheet!

I started on my sorting journey in January this year as my daughter and I were in the middle of building 76419 but making slow progress and I didn't want to start building any other sets until that one was done.....finished all the sorting earlier this month but that Hogwarts Castle is still unfinished so I have broke open a couple of smaller sets to build myself.

I'm a MOC'er mostly (when I have time) so everything ends up as parts usually. I used to sort by colour and type but that was a horrendous job, so now it's just type. The colours are still mostly quite distinct so it's easy to see at a glance where the colour for the part is. If bricks and plates can be combined easily then I do that and I've worked out ways to tesselate pieces together to minimise the footprint but still make them easy to remove. It has speeded up sorting and organising but there is still a lot to go. I bough the Alex drawers from Ikea, I have three of them and it's still not enough but then I've been at this hobby for 40+ years so...

Similar to @pd66, I am sorting the kids’ old sets, bagging & completing them from tubs of pieces, partly built sets and random spare bits all thrown together when we moved house. They can figure out what they want to do with them eventually. Instructions have been stored by theme and in number order in hanging files in stackable crates.

It does help create space to build & display the sets they’re now interested in.

We have a dedicated Lego room, my town layout is on a raised platform with supposedly neat storage for all the boxes underneath...
OK, that's the theory anyway - there's shelves with sets on, boxes everywhere, sets in the lounge / dining room / office but I console myself with the fact that anyone visiting want to see everything and ends up staying for hours whilst they get a potted history of what is what. And I always buy parts I already have - sorting is limited to big bits in buckets, small bits in other buckets...

Great article! Keep them coming, please!

I have to admit that, like other people here, I have to answer 'yes' to all the questions... And I also admit that I have a first world problem with key point 9 (limit new purchases), but on the other hand, I have learned to prioritize my LEGO spending by being able to make choices about which sets I actually buy and which sets I don't. This means that I am very aware that I will never fulfill all my wish lists, which is fine!

Every now and then I take a closer look at all the items in my collection (usually by browsing my collection here on Brickset or flipping through the pages of a LEGO Collector's Guide (such as ISBN9783935976640-1) or one of the many LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedias and Visual Dictionaries , just to keep myself fully aware of how lucky I am to have been able to amass such a vast collection of LEGO sets!

And every now and then, when articles like this pop up, I wonder if I should stop buying LEGO altogether and really start organizing everything I have (before I inevitably buy more new items...)

So, yes I am absolutely guilty of procastination when it comes to uncluttering the LEGO mess I made around the house! Time not only to *make organizing plans*, but to actually *start doing the organizing* before it really is too late!

I'd be happy to contribute to a future article about organising.

I currently use 3 Ikea Billy bookcases, containing a mix of 1.6L and 3L Really Useful Boxes. I also have 8 Akro Mills-style drawer units, and 2 other drawer units, which house small elements and some elements which I don't have many of. Those are on top of tables which I use for building/sorting/as a dumping ground.

Under those tables are a mix of 9L, 18L and 36L RUBs, for parts which are bulky and/or where I have a lot of them - such as 2x4 bricks, windows and doors, wheels and tyres, minifigs, 1x4 plates etc.

That makes up 99% of my storage. I have 2x 2.4m shelves to hold display models - mainly Modulars and Speed Champions, and I keep mocs in the garage.

I almost always sort by element. Occasionally, if I have a lot of one element, I'll also sort it by colour - 1x1 and 1x2 plates and tiles, as well as cheese slopes, being the main ones. Sorting parts solely by colour is, imho, an awful way to sort and will mainly lead to frustration when building.

I like the Lego doors to your Wardrobes, which I would buy if ever became available. I've re-used a few wardrobes with shelves to keep built Lego in as dust free and more depth for larger builds than display cabinets. Most of my Lego is in Stowage boxes in the garage and attic which need sorting out, reselling etc. but there's always a more important build to finish first.

I share WAY too many of these frustrations/spoiled-collector-attributes.

My biggest frustration is how rapidly I allowed my collection to expand during COVID without focusing on organization first.

My biggest regret/mistake is saving all of the boxes from built sets without flattening them. Then, the backlog of stored 'new' sets filled in the space.

It's taken a year of occasional work to move boxes around to get to the empty boxes, flatten, and organize them. Who really wants to spend precious brick time organizing boxes?

I am always wondering how best to store flattened boxes - got loads of them, and under the bed is not really a practical solution (or even making them into pseudo wallpaper)

I’m still in the midst of an organizational binge with a goal to make it easy to find 90% of my pieces and facilitate a faster and more enjoyable building experience.

These type of articles are really useful for the planning stage where you try to realistically map out what type of storage works for your building style and how much space is needed based on your current and future parts.

I went back and forth between the acro-mils style containers with pull out drawers for each sorted part group and the larger plan drawers with multiple sorted groups accessible for each drawer, ultimately choosing the IKEA Alex drawers based on accessibility for MOCing.

I then mapped out a sorting plan based of part type (small bricks, large bricks, profile bricks, modified bricks, 1x plates, 2x plates, etc.) with a drawer dedicated to each part type. I found that at least 30 drawers would be needed based on the various types. Each part is then separated into smaller plastic bins of varying sizes (vtopmart worked well). I also have a large plastic bin or shoe bins that contains bags of overflow parts. .

While I resisted sorting technic at first due to not building that style, it grew to be too large a pile to efficiently find parts for system builds so those have been sorted by part type (pins, connectors, plates, bricks, modified bricks, etc.).

Some sets are stored in bags within larger plastic bins by theme.

I’ve found the children enjoy sorted parts just as much as I do and certainly recommend it if you have the time, space and means to bring organization to the chaos.

The best way to sort your bricks is in a way that makes sense to you, as in 99.99% you don't share your hobby with others. For some it will be by colour, other shapes and some will consolidate few type of bricks in one box while other will separate all. There's no right/wrong here.

@AverageChimaEnjoyer said:
"Sorry, but... you'd have to be an obsessive LEGO collector if you accidentally buy a copy of a set you already own"

I had LEGO as a kid, but started buying as an adult in 2007. My husband also enjoys LEGO and will have me order sets for him on occasion. I build a lot of sets, but we don’t have room to display all of them & the boxes start to accumulate. Up until 2020, I had never kept an inventory. During the shut down for Covid, I decided to take an inventory. I soon discovered a duplicate of set 75095 Star Wars TIE Fighter. It had been out for 5 years, at that point, so my husband must have asked me to order it, forgetting we had already done so. Since then, our only duplicates have been intentional. We almost accidentally ordered a second of 75341 UCS Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder, until I stopped to check my inventory. I wouldn’t call us ‘obsessive’ just forgetful. It happens. Happy building!

How does one forget whats in their lego collection? I have 219 sets according to my Brickset collection and can probably remember all of those which I have. Do I just have a relatively small collection in comparison?

As for my sorting system I sort my sets by theme and my bricks by colour. Takes up the space under the bed and some ikea drawers.

It's so strange for me because i was in a totally same case of you, my hobby becoming my nightmare, so much chaos that was impossible to creating something again. During the last weeks, step by step and with the precious help of my wife, my lego room became fully operationnal. Almost perfection (just a little problem with the empty boxs and leaflets...).Now i realize having enough parts for creating what i want, so i need to buy next sets with more wisdom.
I'll follow you with attention, bon courage!

When I got out of my Dark Age some 15 years ago and discovered Brickset I started logging what I have right away luckily.
I live in a 65m2 appartment with wife & son, have some LEGO in an Ikea display case and stash empty flat packed boxes and some bagged sets in the small 6m2 storage room in the attic that's also my office and our garage and, well, storage space (also for other smaller collections). But for most of my LEGO hobby, I rent a corner in a friends studio/atelier/office. There's a huge work table or spare desk where I can built or sort. I've put up and altered 4 Ikea Trofast Storage units currently holding about 50 labeled Trofast drawers of sorted (by type) elements. On top of this is a 50x220cm shelf to display builds and store work in progress. Two curtains cover up the drawers when I'm not there. Of course there is never enough space so there's stuff in bags, containers, boxes all crammed into that space and on top. There's a plan to add more drawers to this giant unit although I also want to confine the hobby. And I need to lasercut some wooden seperators for the drawers to do more sorting within the drawers (I now use little food containers and such).
For sorting out I use Ikea cutlery drawer storage thingies that I keep finding in the garbage (in some places in Amsterdam you throw everything that won't in a trash bag out on the street on set days - I've found LEGO that way).

I sort my parts by category and size (i.e. the small and numerous 1x1 plates don't need to be with the big 2x10's or whatever). If there's a large amount of a certain part, and a large amount in a particular color, then I start splitting that one into colors. Another case is with old greys (or browns but that hasn't been necessary). For my gears and bushings, I have one slot for old grey ones and one for new grey ones since I can't distinguish those half the time when needed.

Actually finished re-sorting my parts into my new, expanded sorting system earlier this summer, and I've been pretty satisfied with it. When I made my old one, I didn't have good spaces to keep smaller parts, so they were all jumbled up and also constantly escaping. I also didn't have a need for a space for Constraction parts back then, but over the years I've gathered up quite a few loose Bionicle / Hero Factory parts so that also needed a dedicated space.