Storage solutions: marcushenningsen
Posted by Huw,
Marcus Henningsen shows us his neat, compact solution, ideal for his kids to play and build:
After having read all the interesting submissions to this series I wanted to contribute with my storage solution. Not that it is particularly inspirational - in fact it is very basic and unimpressive - but simply because it reflects the reality of having Lego as one of several hobbies while living with my wife and three children in a 115 m2 4-room apartment.
I don’t consider myself a dedicated AFOL, my collection is relatively limited and mainly focused on city or city-like sets, and I don’t spend too much time on Lego. My wife is not especially supportive, though she acknowledges the value of it as a toy which the children and I have in common.
Our children, now aged 8, 6 and 2, have always been very fond of playing with the sets and the figures, but I was getting annoyed with having to build a city on the living room floor only to be asked a week later to make way for the vacuum cleaner, so I came up with this solution:
Nothing fancy, just a small table, self-made and therefore rather wobbly, 40 cm high and dimensioned exactly to 3 x 5 32-stud base plates. On top, I’ve constructed a tiny city, where I try to incorporate as many elements and details as possible. Since the space is scarce, the city must grow vertically. As you see, this is work in progress.
I don’t have the luxury of a dedicated Lego chamber but just a rather small and badly lit room shared among various functions including guest accommodation, my wife’s COVID-19-imposed digital yoga classes, laundry drying and my home office. Hence, the solution had to be very compact and integrate both storage and display.
Underneath the table-top I have attached some U-profiles and inserted a couple of regular plastic boxes from the local hardware store. Since these didn’t suffice, I had to place on the floor two obsolete under bed drawers.
Furthermore, a couple of boxes are placed in the Ikea rack which at the moment are storing my small Technic collection.
The sorting system is not particularly thought through and has really just emerged along the way. I don't sort by colour, only by some brick types. This works well for my uses, of course due to the small size of my collection.
The beauty of this simple setup is the fact that our tiny lego city now has a permanent home which allows for the children and their friends to play as often as they want and which takes up a minimum of space. This size has turned out perfect in order for the children to be able to reach everywhere and still it conveys a sense of big city with a ton of action going on.
The focus is less on display and more on playability. I enjoy building sets and coming up with new elements for our city, however, since the children are encouraged to play as often as possible, most of my time really is spent on repairing stuff that suddenly broke in some car accident or Ninjago battle. Annoying at times, but all in all a great solution for all of us.
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27 comments on this article
This is very elegant!
>> Has a city display that would attract attention at any LEGO convention.
>> "I don’t consider myself a dedicated AFOL"
Superb work & solutions there, Marcus! Your children are very lucky.
Very cool! Your compact, little city serves a lot of purposes and you are kind of like the city planner/maintenance guy:)
Very nice solution for playing! Thank you for sharing!
Reminds me of this table:
https://brickset.com/article/51566/storage-solutions-jon
Finally, someone whose city layout is smaller than my own! By about 1 baseplate lengthwise.
That Lerahk planking with Tahu Nuva's weapons inside that tub of City vehicles is very concerning though...
Fantastic set-up and, for me, answers a question I've been wondering for a while, namely; 'How many baseplates are needed to accommodate a 180deg return on a train layout?' I really want to add a train to own display but didn't know if I'd have the space - this seems to be the answer!!
Small detail but I like the graffiti on the city wall!
Interesting solution to incorporating the usual loop track together with a creater main street block, all within 15 base plates, as usually only have space for a couple buildings within the standard track loop or need lots more track and space to go around the city.
I've never thought of doing this as the base plates have no stud holes underneath, so guessing you put on supports with smooth tiles on top, and use the sidewalk and balconies to secure and prevent movement?
I like the expansion of the police station with the cliff wall and lake, graffiti at the end wall, and the subway station is well done and given me some ideas. Finally, there is still empty lots for future expansion, which helps with purchasing negotiations with those in power.
That crook isn't going to get very far : Samurai X is waiting for them!
I’m working on a way to elevate my modular city, very nice to see another person’s take!
As the father of three and seven year old boys, your final paragraph about spending most of your time repairing broken sets is all too relatable. And yes, it’s incredibly annoying! Serves me right for being such a Lord Business though I suppose :-)
Now this is my favourite setup so far. I have a storage system, drawers, and so on. But I don't have something like this: a living LEGO city I can use. It's giving me a ideas, for sure.
Smart
@magykfyre said:
"Small detail but I like the graffiti on the city wall!"
Thanks, though that idea is a little more than inspired by the works of https://www.flickr.com/photos/legoinsomnia, i.e. https://www.flickr.com/photos/legoinsomnia/49683154238/
Thanks for all your kind replies =)
@piteous said:
"I’m working on a way to elevate my modular city, very nice to see another person’s take!"
As soon as I had the table finished I knew I had to elevate the city. It searched a lot but it was hard to find similar setups. This one was inspirational: https://images.app.goo.gl/HEaFbC3YqV1CUqzC8
Other than that I've been looking at Smallbrickcity's layout, though his focus is somewhere different.
@mrkona said:
"Fantastic set-up and, for me, answers a question I've been wondering for a while, namely; 'How many baseplates are needed to accommodate a 180deg return on a train layout?' I really want to add a train to own display but didn't know if I'd have the space - this seems to be the answer!!"
It's not too hard to find different train layouts in relation to baseplates, something like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=lego+train+layout+base+plate&client=ms-android-xiaomi-rev2&prmd=ivsn&sxsrf=ALeKk02X3s1pqSmxY6d4FnOiTHrxna5XYQ:1591021329891&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjbusqp6ODpAhUB0aYKHdR6DI0Q_AUoAXoECA4QAQ&biw=360&bih=625imgrc=pRcJS_wdpq737M
I assume you can go as small as 3*3, however, you might then have to deal with the train conductors' union... =)
@GeordiePaul said:
"As the father of three and seven year old boys, your final paragraph about spending most of your time repairing broken sets is all too relatable. And yes, it’s incredibly annoying! Serves me right for being such a Lord Business though I suppose :-)"
It's a fine line; I certainly don't want to discourage them playing with the city, so I have had to learn to tame my frustration in these situations. On the other hand there are just to many hours put into this project to just let go and have them unleash all imaginable catastrophies. I think we have finally found a sound balance.
@LegoSonicBoy said:
"That Lerahk planking with Tahu Nuva's weapons inside that tub of City vehicles is very concerning though..."
Haha, that thing is always in the way, don't like it at all, don't know how it even came into the collection, but I think my son picked it up at some flea market once.
@ambr said:
"I've never thought of doing this as the base plates have no stud holes underneath, so guessing you put on supports with smooth tiles on top, and use the sidewalk and balconies to secure and prevent movement?"
Not exactly, you can put base plates on top of studs and have them aligned with normal bricks: https://forum.brickset.com/discussion/26463/plate-versus-baseplate-height-how-to-align-them
It took a couple of iterations to find the right solution. Ideally I would have build everything on pillars and fitted it together with normal plates, however, when I finally got the shopping list together on bricklink I was shocked at the price of this approach.
Also using 16-stud long bricks to fit everything was too expensive. I tried that with a small part of the construction, however, also the gaps were annoying.
I finally ended up with a less traditional approach. I researched the height of plywood from the local hardware store, found something I though was suitable, and had them cut to pieces exactly the size of 2x3 32-stud base plates. This is then supported by the brick-built frame and a good deal of Duplo bricks I, eh, borrowed from our then 1-your-old.
You can spot the plywood on the bare corner spot on one of the images above. It is not perfect, there is a small height difference, less than 1 mm which is annoying when placing laying tiles, but not annoying enough to make me reconsider.
You're right that the frame is keeping the plywood from moving, and the studs on the frame is preventing the base plates on top from falling off.
If you or anyone else need more info, don't hesitate to write.
These I love reading these articles! I'd like to share my storage solutions as well, as I've been particularly focused on sorting during quarantine. @Huw - Can you please tell me how I can share?
@marcushenningsen --Thank you for the continuing feedback about how you worked out the design and construction of this inspiring small city! I hope to be able to do something like that myself some day....
Awesome Moc
@mrkona:
Three. Every additional line you want to run on a full loop will increase that by one (half a baseplate on either side).
@marcushenningsen:
If you add a layer of sacrificial tiles to the top of whatever you've built for a framework, it might get your plywood closer to an ideal height.
@Bricklayer79 said:
"These I love reading these articles! I'd like to share my storage solutions as well, as I've been particularly focused on sorting during quarantine. @Huw - Can you please tell me how I can share? "
Simply send some words and pictures to helpdesk[at]brickset.com and it'll join the queue!
Very inspirational! Thanks for the links in the comments, very helpful! I now want to put a train under my modular buildings too.
Awesome, love your display !! No display is too small. Keep enjoying as you're never too old to enjoy Lego. You can grow old but you never have to grow up !