Storage solutions: Endtalk
Posted by Huw,
Kim, aka endtalk, tells us about "The Ever-Evolving Organisation of My Lego Collection":
Sorting for me is an ever-evolving process but I (always) think I am almost there. Like most of us, it was easier when my collection was small. I used several plastic boxes with dividers that stacked. It was perfect for the one-bedroom apartment we were living in at the time my obsession/collecting/building really expanded exponentially. The great thing about the boxes was that I could buy more as my collection grew.
Then, we bought a house, I was able to use a bedroom as my Lego room. And luckily for me, I was able to use the room outside my Lego room to hang some shelves and put several drawer units for Lego storage. The drawer units are great because they don’t look like “Lego storage.” I bought them for just $60 each at a store that sells damaged furniture. I had to remove the damaged legs from each drawer units (love to use a grinder) and find a way to attach wheeled legs to each; but they work well as the drawers easily slide out and can be brought to my main Lego space.
Inside my Lego room, I used several Ikea white tables to line the walls and then I used Akro-Mills drawers for small elements. This worked well, but I was finding that I didn’t have much space to build as built Lego sets and projects were taking up space and it looked messy. I know Lego rooms can be messy – it is an art form for many of us and process can be messy. But also for some of us, some OCD tendencies play in and the sorting and neatness are part of the hobby, plus my wife had a crazy idea that if my Lego was in a cabinet that could be closed, guests could stay in my Lego room on an air-mattress. Of course, that hasn’t happened (yet). But that did lead us to buy several Pax shelves from Ikea and that is where I am at with my organising now.
I am happy with this set up. I have two large cabinets with grey doors on one side of the room. I have a large display shelf (really three made into one) on the other side of the room. I usually have three Ikea tables set up in the room, for building and sorting but I have two dissembled tables in the closet that I put up in my Lego room or the outer room when I have a big project going.
Within the two large cabinets with doors are shelves and drawers and shallow pull-out drawers. On some of the shelves, I have the Papimax drawers for small elements that used to be in the Akro-Mills containers – most of these parts are just divided by part and not by colour. I have my 1 x and 2x plates in the Papimax up to 1x8 and 2x8 and these are organised by colour within each drawer. For example, I have a drawer of 2x2 plates and then they are divided by colour within the Papimax drawer. Then the rest of the plates and many of the bricks are in the shallow pull-out drawers. They are all organised by colour.
In some cases, such as my 2x2 bricks, I have used the dividers that are sold with the shallow drawers. In others, I have used the bricks to build dividers (1X4s). I know some people don’t like their bricks stacked before building but I haven’t found it to be a problem, though I know not to stack my brown or dark red. Some of my basic brick (2x4s) is in the main room outside my room in the drawers but I do have some divided by colour into plastic food storage/cereal containers, so I can easily see what colour and size they are. I tend to do this for green, yellow, red, and blue as I have been building Fabuland Mocs and these are the bricks I need most often.
The PAX cabinets are also handy for keeping small sets (especially GWPs) in the drawers and I have a drawer full of Fabuland house parts, so they are easily accessible as well. I can also keep a project in a shallow drawer (one with space above) in the cabinet and pull it out when I want to work on it. I also have a closet in my Lego room where I store sets to be built or flipped and I do keep my old architecture boxes but not others on a shelf in the closet.
Finally, I have a few shelves in the main upstairs area in our house outside our Lego room where I have some Architecture sets on display and my modulars (I found early on that a city wasn’t my thing). Inside my Lego room on the PAX display shelf, I change out my latest favourite sets.
I also have at least a piece of each of my Mocs and some of the sets that have special meaning to me like my 2017 Inside Tour Set. I think my current set up, has been like this for about three years – at least the Ikea shelves though the Pappimax are about a year old. I have added shelves to the room outside the Lego room. Who knows what will be next but for now, I think my set up is good for me.
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22 comments on this article
Very nice precise organized! And a good balance between parts storage boxes and displayed sets.
Washing dishes with an Architecture collection view is priceless...
So many storage solutions have been presented and I wonder:
- colors fade
- dust
Wouldn't it be better to have them in boxes?
@pleasefundmydivorce_com said:
"So many storage solutions have been presented and I wonder:
- colors fade
- dust
Wouldn't it be better to have them in boxes?"
For some certainly, but I know it makes me happy to see my sets and much of the elements I build with are inside cabinets with drawers.
^ Exactly. There is no point owning and building them if you're going to keep them hidden away and out of view all the time.
Put them out on display and enjoy them! As long as you take reasonable precautions and don't leave sets in main living rooms for years or on window sills then dust and fading won't be much of a problem anyway.
"I found early on that a city wasn’t my thing"
Why did you decide not to make a city? Is it a lack of space? I am rethinking this too as I don't have much room beyond the bookcases I currently use for display.
Great setup! I am glad you brought up the evolution of storage solutions in the forefront of your piece. It makes me feel much better about my (I never realized was so small) collection being in various stages of storing. I have a couple of questions;
1) Consider me a noob here, why does one not stack dark brown or dark red bricks?
2) Where did you get all the super groovy LEGO stickers adorning your blue toolbox.
Also, were you bummed as well when ThinkGeek was bought out then closed?
Thank you for the mention of Papi Max drawers, I had not come across these before. Shame currently sold out as they sell them in groups of 8, and can stack securely together vertically if lack horizontal space while still able to open the individual shelves which can be divided. The cereal containers also add some colour to the room, and appears that you are making use of otherwise unusable space behind doors. Tower Bridge looks great with the wide span.
@HUW regarding "As long as you take reasonable precautions and don't leave sets in main living rooms for years". I have some sets on the shelf in the living room - with no direct sunlight. Do you have some experience that LEGO will degrade faster in living room?
Utilizing Lego in and around the house is a very neat idea, well done my friend, well done...
Can you show any of your Fabuland mocs?
@sanders2221 said:
" @HUW regarding "As long as you take reasonable precautions and don't leave sets in main living rooms for years". I have some sets on the shelf in the living room - with no direct sunlight. Do you have some experience that LEGO will degrade faster in living room? "
Just that there's more likely to be more dust than in a less-frequently occupied LEGO room. Certainly in my experience.
@Huw said:
" @sanders2221 said:
" @HUW regarding "As long as you take reasonable precautions and don't leave sets in main living rooms for years". I have some sets on the shelf in the living room - with no direct sunlight. Do you have some experience that LEGO will degrade faster in living room? "
Just that there's more likely to be more dust than in a less-frequently occupied LEGO room. Certainly in my experience."
Well dust in general is problem everywhere. I had my sets in living room over 3 years - rotating different sets each year with regular dedusting. So far no much degradation over a time.
@anyone have home some air purifier and share us experience? Like if its good investment to lower dust level in the room? So you don't need to dedust your sets so often ?
@EarthGirl83:
City is boring, unless you spruce it up a bit. I suggest a liberal dose of Batman.
@Fingerinsocket:
Dark-red, reddish-brown, and (I think) dark-brown have been noted to have a tendency to grow incredibly brittle after a few years. The odd thing is, I have a huge pile of 1x2 dark-red plates that I collected over a few years on LUGBulk, and anything I built with them about 5 years ago is perfectly fine, but when I started trying to build with the remaining stock about 10% of them started shearing off on one side as soon as I tried to press them down onto studs. It happened so quick that there was zero resistance to pressing the part down. In theory, the constructed MOCs that used parts from this same supply should be having similar problems, but I haven't noticed any. I have, however, left them fully intact, and I know that people have had problems during disassembly where prying plates up with a brick separator destroys many of them. My other experience with this problem is seasonal. I was using a set of 4x 4x4 quarter round plates in reddish-brown to make a patch of dirt where I could place a giant Christmas tree (big enough that it tends to fall over if it's just attached to baseplates where the clutch can be very inconsistent). I was able to use them at a show in late November with no problem, but just one month later when I pressed them down on a baseplate one of them splintered very badly, so I had to come up with a hasty alternative just to get through that show.
The problem here, then, is that people are averse to leaving them attached to other parts in order to prevent them from breaking over time, but it's just a delaying game. The part doesn't _not_ become brittle for being left unattached, and there will come a point when any affected part will be utterly destroyed the instant you try to attach it to something else. So, short of keeping them "intact" in the sense of a museum piece, they're basically useless whether they're broken or not. They just look better when they're still in one piece.
Great, collection Kim.
@EarthGirl83 said:
""I found early on that a city wasn’t my thing"
Why did you decide not to make a city? Is it a lack of space? I am rethinking this too as I don't have much room beyond the bookcases I currently use for display."
Yes, mostly space and the mocs I have built aren't always fitting for cities. I usually do 1 or 2 big mocs a year for a show and have done some commission work too.
@Fingerinsocket said:
"Great setup! I am glad you brought up the evolution of storage solutions in the forefront of your piece. It makes me feel much better about my (I never realized was so small) collection being in various stages of storing. I have a couple of questions;
1) Consider me a noob here, why does one not stack dark brown or dark red bricks?
2) Where did you get all the super groovy LEGO stickers adorning your blue toolbox.
Also, were you bummed as well when ThinkGeek was bought out then closed?"
Read the other comment about the certain colors. They seem to break and I find they break when I take them apart.
Any sticker I get from anyone that has to do with Lego goes on that box which I use to take mocs to shows. Some are from Lego, some from friends some I bought from Redbubble.com
@Fingerinsocket said:
"Great setup! I am glad you brought up the evolution of storage solutions in the forefront of your piece. It makes me feel much better about my (I never realized was so small) collection being in various stages of storing. I have a couple of questions;
1) Consider me a noob here, why does one not stack dark brown or dark red bricks?
2) Where did you get all the super groovy LEGO stickers adorning your blue toolbox.
Also, were you bummed as well when ThinkGeek was bought out then closed?"
And yes bummed about Thinkgeek. Keep sorting and storing ??
@gsom7 said:
"Can you show any of your Fabuland mocs?"
I have some on youtube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCUzZkWzO2EXrnGZL8rMPoig
@gsom7 said:
"Can you show any of your Fabuland mocs?"
And here is one that was on Beyond the Brick
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqIVUHOmOXHM_evw2w_Cs3a5UvjRvdvQG
@endtalk said:
" @EarthGirl83 said:
""I found early on that a city wasn’t my thing"
Why did you decide not to make a city? Is it a lack of space? I am rethinking this too as I don't have much room beyond the bookcases I currently use for display."
Yes, mostly space and the mocs I have built aren't always fitting for cities. I usually do 1 or 2 big mocs a year for a show and have done some commission work too."
Thanks for the reply Kim!
@endtalk said:
" @Fingerinsocket said:
"Great setup! I am glad you brought up the evolution of storage solutions in the forefront of your piece. It makes me feel much better about my (I never realized was so small) collection being in various stages of storing. I have a couple of questions;
1) Consider me a noob here, why does one not stack dark brown or dark red bricks?
2) Where did you get all the super groovy LEGO stickers adorning your blue toolbox.
Also, were you bummed as well when ThinkGeek was bought out then closed?"
And yes bummed about Thinkgeek. Keep sorting and storing ??"
Thanks so much for the replys! Roger on the "Redbubble" tip. Keeping Calm and Sorting on!
Cheers,
Colin
Wow that's really cool I've just started my organization process and I collect more than just Lego, my collection is just starting even though I've been a fan for several years now but I'm still a T-FOL and I don't have a job yet, and I'm not making much money, I do have a weekly allowance tho. I don't have a whole lot of space to expand but I think I can manage.