Storage solutions: HoMa
Posted by Huw,
Today we are looking round my good friend Holger's LEGO room:
I am lucky to have a specific LEGO room in my flat, although these days it is also my remote office, so the desk is more or less free of LEGO, but there are still a few thousand bricks around me.
For years and years my main storage has consisted of drawers from Aldi which are reasonable in price (€7,99 a unit) and available once or twice a year. I prefer the version with the smaller drawers. I have about 50 of those units, 44 of them easy to access in my new 'wall'.
You can stack up to 11 bricks in the length or 8 studs, e.g. 1x8 tiles in the width of these drawers. Thankfully, the design and shape of these units has not changed over the years.
For each of the main colours I build with, like black, light bluish grey, dark bluish grey, white, red, yellow and tan, I use one Aldi unit with the same sorting order for plates and modified bricks.
From the bottom left corner it starts with 1x1 plates and top right cheese slopes are to be found. For me this system works really well. Other colours and shapes are sorted more or less by theme and shape, e.g. I have a unit for transparent pieces and one for slope pieces. Larger elements and pieces in higher quantities are stored in zip bags in the blue and red IKEA boxes which are stored on top and below the Aldi units.
In addition, many IKEA Samla boxes can also be found in my LEGO room and in a huge cupboard in the corridor outside.
Shortly after moving in I asked a local carpenter to build some custom shelves to fit in the Aldi units perfectly. I started designing these shelves on the top-level of the door so an additional board runs just on top of the door and gives me further storage space on top.
A good investment was the LED panel to light up the room. The cold 6000K light is not very cosy but perfect to differentiate colours like old and new light grey or new and slightly yellowed white bricks. It's a huge 120x60 cm unit from a German online shop.
Another highlight is my moveable shelf, an old wooden IKEA shelf on wheels. I build in for my former LEGO room which was under the roof and straight walls were rare. While building, I move this shelf closer to my desk and it allows me easy access to some more elements and pieces stored in various 4229 Basic Building Set, 5+ boxes. I always fear that this shelf will collapse on day, but this didn't happen in the past 10 years so it will survive another decade.
The rest of my flat is more or less LEGO free, other than 10265 Ford Mustang in the living room. Most of my MOCs are stored away, with just a few recent 12 Volt vintage train MOCs on display on various shelves in the LEGO room.
Some more shots can be found in my LEGO room album on Flickr.
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27 comments on this article
I have the same drawer cabinets. They aren't just 'from the Aldi', the specific manufacturer is Allit and the series is called VarioPlus. Though, somewhere in recent years they overhauled the VarioPlus series and not sure if the old version (in the images) is still available. The newer ones are still compatible, but have a little higher overall size and look a little different (and are actually a bit more sturdier).
The varioplus series has more than just the simple drawers from these images, I'm using three or four variants myself. There are cabinets with various drawer sizes, that are mostly compatible with each other. It's a pretty neat and very affordable system. It's only available in Germany (and sometimes surrounding countries) though.
Great stuff Holger and very well thought through! I discovered the Aldi/Allit stuff only last year but kept purchasing them (in Lidl as well) for storage because of their easy use. My collection is by all means a lot smaller though. For the larger bricks I use the "old" portable, four and six compartment luggage-like boxes and the buckets. Great to see Billy, and Sten on wheels, excellent idea. We still keep ours from student's days decades ago ;-)
Shelves on wheels! That is brilliant, Holger.
I bought 2 (two) of those Aldi drawer units last year and thought, "Well, that's my LEGO storage sorted!"
Oh, the naïveté...
Thanks for sharing, I use the exact same drawers as well, they are fantastic, almost look like they are designed specifically for Lego. I hope they will never stop restocking them, as every year I buy more for my expanding collection, haha. Also your sorting system is very similar to mine, haha.
@legolijntje I'm curious which other cabinets from the same brand you use!
Your wall of bricks is very satisfying to look at. Thanks!
Your LEGO wall is quite impressive and seems very well organised.
The shelf unit on wheels that could collapse at any moment makes me think of the quote from Monty Python 'And now, monsieur, a waffer-thin mint' or to paraphrase 'And now, monsieur, a waffer-thin 1 x 1 tile'. ;~)
It's very satisfying to look at but it bothers me that one of the units in the bottom left appears to be a different colour to all the others, although actually looks as if it's just devoid of drawers.
@Huw said:
"It's very satisfying to look at but it bothers me that one of the units in the bottom left appears to be a different colour to all the others, although actually looks as if it's just devoid of drawers."
The one in bottom left is really missing the drawers. There were in use for sorting on my desk when the I took that picture. Today it's at least filled up half with new/more elements which are not yet added to the standard colour units. The sorting optimisation will never end …
I love the 7745 Express train in old light grey (linked via the 12v MOCS). One of my all time favourite sets, I can imagine it was quite difficult to source all the correct elements!
And that is a lovely photo of some of your 12v trains on the bottom shelf. Thanks for sharing!
@bigmanjones said:
"I love the 7745 Express train in old light grey (linked via the 12v MOCS). One of my all time favourite sets, I can imagine it was quite difficult to source all the correct elements!
And that is a lovely photo of some of your 12v trains on the bottom shelf. Thanks for sharing!"
Yes, it is a challenge to rebuild a set in different colours. But more to come on that topic.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/holgermatthes/45584092081/in/album-72157678685037500/ ... a high quality framed version is a nice option rather then seeing LEGO related pictures on screen only :-)
Thank you for sharing all your vintage trains, I found a few sets that I didn't know existed, 7823 container terminal, 7838 goods terminal, 7760 shunter train which seemed to be the starting point for many of your excellent mocs. There were also a lot of additional single wagons and miscellaneous sets to save up with pocket money or receive as small presents which is sadly missed now. Also first time seeing the bottom box art, I think I understand how the 7862 decoupler works now after a lifetime mystery. Are there any videos of the trains in action?
We use those cabinets too, from Aldi (by far not as many though, and even then every time we try to start sorting - the kids help... well, until they find some pieces they want to play with now which also means they want this back and that one there and... so most pieces remain on the floor anyway ;) and here in your pictures seeing those shelves I was hoping for some standard IKEA cupboard that would fit so snugly, but no, tailormade... I should have known :)
@ambr said:
"Are there any videos of the trains in action?"
Not that many related too my 12 V stuff: https://youtu.be/uqV1My9YK6U and https://youtu.be/bMzRJdWfobI (a decoupler integreaded in a 12 V locomotive)
@T79 said:
"I was hoping for some standard IKEA cupboard that would fit so snugly"
Many of Ikea's shelves can be easily adapted to the height you need, though they don't look quite as classy as these custom ones.
I use 'Albert' shelves which are incredibly cheap and have shelves which can be 'adjusted' to your needs using only a basic battery drill/driver: https://www.ikea.com/pt/en/p/albert-shelving-unit-softwood-00111994/
'Hejne' also looks promising for custom shelf heights (https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/hejne-1-section-softwood-s39031411) and 'Ivar' is a nicer-looking, but pricier, option: <https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/cat/ivar-system-11703
“ I always fear that this shelf will collapse on day, but this didn't happen in the past 10 years so it will survive another decade.“
Well considering how much the bottom shelf is bowing in the last picture I’m surprised it’s hasn’t yet.
@TWP said:
I'm curious which other cabinets from the same brand you use!"
I have a lot of the ones from the images above. The old style, as I call it. I used to have two other variants from the old style, but I sold those and replaced them with the newer series.
From the newer series, I have a combination of the VarioPlus Basic 47 and Basic 54, which are essential the same but just come with a different assortment of drawers. The neat thing about the newer system, is that you can also use double-wide drawers, of which I also bought some extra seperately. I also have 1 VarioPlus Basic D 21. That one has 4 big open drawers which I use to store the 4 main types of Technic pins. It's perfect for that because they are big (fit a lot of pins) and are open (easy access for the most used Technic parts).
For non-immediate access storage I use a wild variety suitcase style boxes from various brands, stacked in a random closet. I would like to move all of that to a single storage system from Allit too; the EuroPlus Basic or EuroPlus Pro, but I see no reason to do so as it would cost money and I wouldn't gain much more than 'that looks neat' haha.
One thing I’m curious about with these articles: how many pieces (estimated) are in each collection?
This would help with determining a solution for my own collection (280,000+ pieces).
@The_Chosen_1 said:
"One thing I’m curious about with these articles: how many pieces (estimated) are in each collection?"
According to my "owned sets" listed here on brickset I got at least 688259 pieces. Many sets in my collection do not have a piece count in the database and I never keep track on BL orders, LEGOLAND loose brick purchases and Lugbulk orders. I estimate that I got a million bricks in my collection.
one thing that surprises me in those articles is people who have a lot of pieces, but seem to hardly display any models.
First thought: "I've got the same drawers as HoMa, I guess I'm doing something right."
They're very nice items, especially for the Aldi price, though I'm still figuring out labels that will stick on them permanently.
@Rob42 said:
"First thought: "I've got the same drawers as HoMa, I guess I'm doing something right."
They're very nice items, especially for the Aldi price, though I'm still figuring out labels that will stick on them permanently."
I've personally never had any problems with whatever I stick on them... Even the cheap Chinese stickers (I use small red stickers to denote which items I have more stored away in bulk-storage) stay perfectly on there :/
^^
i have some of those drawer units in my Lego room/Bricklink store. Mine are labelled with a Brother P touch 1000 labeller which gives a professional result, the labels stick well and have never fallen off.
All my stock locations are numbered, but on these drawers I just label the left hand drawer and use the same number on the other drawers. Eg 5024 is the left hand drawer and I refer to the others on the same line as 5024A B and C. The large drawer on the bottom would be 5024D. Works for me.
I only wish the room was larger so I could fit more in!
It is maybe helpful for somebody.
I have the same drawers (from LIDL in our case), and because the black plastic holder is full of holes in the back (for wall fixing, but I use them on the floor), I covered the sides and back with food plastic foil to keep the dust entering from the back.
A feast for an AFOL's eyes! We can all safely assume that you are German due to the epic level of organisation. :-P
Finding the desired drawer solution (ceap and sturdy - I cannot justify a storage solution costing more than my actual LEGO pieces) and sticking to it, is the best way to go when your collection is slowly creeping towards the thousands of pieces.
One question though. How do you acess the top drawers/bins? With a ladder or something? Or are there pieces that you rarely need/use?
@HoMa said:
" @ambr said:
"Are there any videos of the trains in action?"
Not that many related too my 12 V stuff: https://youtu.be/uqV1My9YK6U and https://youtu.be/bMzRJdWfobI (a decoupler integreaded in a 12 V locomotive)
"
Thank you, the figure of 8 with the cross-over is far more interesting to watch than the usual oval and the red light to stop the train at the junction shows how far Lego was ahead 40 years ago.
@blackdeathgr said:
"A feast for an AFOL's eyes! We can all safely assume that you are German due to the epic level of organisation. :-P
Finding the desired drawer solution (ceap and sturdy - I cannot justify a storage solution costing more than my actual LEGO pieces) and sticking to it, is the best way to go when your collection is slowly creeping towards the thousands of pieces.
One question though. How do you acess the top drawers/bins? With a ladder or something? Or are there pieces that you rarely need/use?"
You are right, I am from Germany and I prefer a very well sorted collection of bricks when I build. I want to build rather then to search. And I can reach all drawers without a ladder, but of course the ones in the two middle rows are the ones I need the most. Sometimes I just stand in front of the wall and build some assemblies holding them in my hand.
@Legolijntje said:
I have a lot of the ones from the images above. The old style, as I call it. I used to have two other variants from the old style, but I sold those and replaced them with the newer series.
From the newer series, I have a combination of the VarioPlus Basic 47 and Basic 54, which are essential the same but just come with a different assortment of drawers. The neat thing about the newer system, is that you can also use double-wide drawers, "
thanks for getting back to me.
I see what you mean now with the newer drawers! Yeah, I only have the old ones. I think I saw the newer ones advertised somewhere, but they seemed less nice because of the added extra space on top and bottom that is not used for drawers. I made a run on the old ones before they were out!
but indeed those bigger drawers and middle dividers seem nice!
@Felix_Mezei said:
"It is maybe helpful for somebody.
I have the same drawers (from LIDL in our case), and because the black plastic holder is full of holes in the back (for wall fixing, but I use them on the floor), I covered the sides and back with food plastic foil to keep the dust entering from the back."
That is a good tip, I may try it, thanks!