Storage solutions: Eero Okkonen
Posted by Huw,
You are in for a treat today: Eero Okkonen, winner of our Huwbot competition, shows us every nook and cranny of the building and storage area in his student flat, with a little help from Huwbot...
I’m Eero Okkonen, a builder. I don’t collect. I’ve got a lot of bricks, and on a regular basis it feels like I have too much, but I also buy more on regular basis, so maybe it’s not too much after all. It seems to be much less than some other collection featured here, so I could describe my storage system as “Compact budget system for active builders living in smallish rental apartments”.
This article concentrates on storing parts. I have currently one set build, LEGO House Tree of Ideas, which is on my table (it’s wonderfully sturdy). I’ve also got few dozen MOCs on display – in the living room, on drawer furniture and on shelves in bedroom. And as I’m very bad at disassembling my builds, I store them simply by putting them on large ziplock bags mostly intact and setting them on big boxes in wardrobe, like a mass grave of character builds. Prepare to see a lot of ziplock bags.!
Special thanks to Huwbot for helping me to show my system...
I live in 49-square-meter student flat with my partner and three cats. As we don’t have a basement or garage, my working station is in the living room corner. Our flat has an excellent plan, though; with seven metres structural depth and our own garden. I have a window to the garden on my working station, which is a thing I would miss a lot in a huge, spacious basement LEGO cave.
On my table, I have one small plastic drawer set and several open trays. They contain special pieces that I need actively and often but I don’t have huge quantities of. These include 1x2 and 1x1 TECHNIC bricks, T-bars, clip plates and tiles, Mixel joints, battle droid arms and handlebar plates; and also some more special things like “assorted useful-looking minifig utensils”. The system is not based on actual logic or official classification of parts. It has organically evolved to meet my requirements.
This tray features lot of modified plates with handlebars and handy SNOT pieces; usually things used when building limbs.
The second SYSTEM tray is dominated by brackets and useful joint pieces; old type finger hinges are usually used for 180-degree SNOT.
The two TECHNIC trays see less action and are therefore situated a bit further from where I sit. These pieces feel less essential currently and I’m wondering if I’d do with only one TECHNIC tray; but some of the pieces are essential for specific things like knees.
On the wooden office drawer, the first drawer has colourful 1-stud wide plates (also 2x2 plates). A beautiful sight. Low drawers like this are very useful and use their space very effectively. I’ve been looking for a good drawer with broad and low units, but no luck so far. Printed tiles are stored on 32x32 baseplates. This makes them easy to browse, and I don’t have much use for baseplates anyway as our LUG’s modular standard doesn’t use them (they’re slippery and flexible).
The second drawer has some essentials (hinge bricks, 1x4 and 2x4 “wide” curved slopes and 2x2 weird curved slopes (studded and studless). And ziplock bags! They hold grey and black tiles (with high use rate) and assorted TECHNIC and transparent bits on the back.
Why ziplocks? They use the space effectively as you can fill a box or drawer with them no matter how big bags you use. They can be dug. They can be thrown around the room. They are cheap and come in large variety of sizes; the smallest ones may be hard to find but even modest Bricklink buyer should get enough as a packing material.
They’re easy to adjust and organise – if the bag is too small or big, just change it to another one. They’re not perfect, though; ziplock bags tend to get holes over time, especially ones that hold angular and sharp pieces like big plates. Therefore, they’re not the most sustainable material either, but I believe the broken ones can be recycled.
The third drawer has “random” boxes of interesting and useful parts that I don’t have enough to qualify their own bags. One is for black and greys and another for colourful ones. On the back there’s interesting but bigger colourful parts. These are often “seed parts”, sources of inspiration for MOCs. There are also useful minifig utensils (including animals), even though I rarely build in minifig scale; and sub-box of round, macaroni etc. tiles.
The fourth drawer holds interesting and weird constraction pieces, not very often used, but full of potential. On the back there are 1x1 round bricks, plates and cones, sorted to bags by type and colour.
The last drawer has CCBS pieces in ziplock bags.
Next to this piece of furniture is a tin drawer originally used for storing magazines. The low drawers again store plates, this time mostly 2-wide ones. They’re almost full currently, which is of course a good thing – ones that don’t fit are temporarily stored on top of it.
The next drawers are a bit higher but still too low for ziplock bags. Two of the store dark grey and black pieces. Having the dark grey ones there isn’t essential but having black pieces on hand is often useful as I use them in inconspicuous structures.
One of these drawers holds plates with unusual number of studs, in other words jumpers, 1x4 and 2x2 with two studs (I especially like the latter but have only about ten) and also “rail” 1x2 plates.
The remaining four drawers are about ten centimetres high and therefore optimal for useful, essential pieces in ziplock bags. The first one has the crown jewels of my inventory, the curved slopes. They’re sorted mostly by colours, and the most common ones like black and dark green ones also by type:
The second has 1x1 and 1x2 plates and cheese slopes, in colours that I have enough to qualify a bag:
The third one hosts tiles, except for the grey and black ones seen before. They’re sorted by colour and sometimes also by shape. No Clickits for Huwbot yet:
And the last one SNOT pieces, used on pretty much every build:
The main bulk of my inventory is on two big drawers. They’re Ikea’s Malms. They don’t have to be Malms, we just happened to find couple of used ones for cheap. They look like wood but are some composite MDF, looking like wood. I’d rather have some hand-made wooden ones but they’ll do. They open smoothly.
The first drawer has… pretty much anything. Special parts, from short golden chains to rigid hoses (but no Clickits yet). These pieces are used quite frequently. The height of this drawer is on ergonomic height; something than can’t be said on the lower ones.
The second one continues the random aspect, but holds pieces that can be identified as “shapes”: Wedge slopes, 2x2 round bricks, dome quarters, dishes, bows… Sorted mostly by shape:
The fourth one has… bricks! In all shapes and colours, except black, blue and greys. Black and dark grey ones were seen already, light grey and blue ones are in their own boxes. All the white pieces are temporarily not there neither, but that’s only because the drawer floods (again a good thing).
The last one hosts slopes in similar fashion.
The first drawer on the second Malm has arches, windows, door and plants: Quite specific pieces not used in every MOC but still essential and nice. I have huge amounts of arches I’ll never use in anything. At one point I thought I’d be a castle builder, but I’ve been bit quiet on that theme. From time to time I make a modular, though…
The second one is more important, actually – it has bigger plates and all the wedge plates, sorted mostly by colour:
The last Malm drawer hosts WIPs, so I’m not showing it to save you from spoilers; though frankly most of them have quite low chance to get ever finished.
On our Lundia shelf’s lowest shelf there are three boxes. They’re too deep and narrow, and thus not optimal for digging up needed things. One on the left has Bionicle and constraction pieces. I used to be an active Bionicle builder, but I think I’ve lost my edge, they’re very tricky and challenging pieces to use. The box on right has large parts in black and greys. And a cave troll. It also currently hosts two 32x64 modular bases that wait me to make modular buildings on them. The middle crate is a sequel to “random” Malm drawers and hosts specific pieces that I don’t use that often, including seats, barrels, train parts, TECHNIC liftarms, temporarily white bricks… And Clickits! Huwbot has found the treasure.
That’s all I have to show you. In addition to them, I also have a box of big juniorised or otherwise very rarely used parts (for example Duplo grass pieces). And a couple of boxes for TECHNIC ball sockets and CCBS bones. And in the wardrobe there is a big cardboard box of idle minifigures and accessories; they’re stored in LEGO Ideas boxes, which are study and useful.
I hope you found this insight to builder’s storage system in modestly sized apartments useful. While LEGO rooms and basement AFOL-caves have their merits, and often display great DIY skills. However, they’re not realistic option for everyone. Active and ambitious LEGO building hobby is possible in smaller quarters. Trust in ziplock!
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31 comments on this article
Huwbot needs to be an IDEAS set!
Saving space by using ziplock bags in larger boxes is genius! I'm definitely going to make use of this. As you mentioned, I have built up a stash of them from buying on Bricklink. :)
I feel like out of the ones you guys have posted this sorting method is the most satisfying. The colors, the very small drawers because huge ones take up so much space ... so pleasing haha
I really wanna know how I can sort like this with the smallest sorting methods possible ..
I'm confused - I see Huwbot but no Clickits. Has he got a secret stash?!
A welcome return to the actual topic.
To me, this system is weird. I cant understand how you can easily build something this way :). I find ziplock bags superb for storing sets, but find them eaqually horrible for storing pieces, but hey, whatever works for you right ;)
I love seeing someone else who is saving space by stacking pieces (like1x4 plates, for example) in zigzags. It's a way to save space without needlessly damaging the pieces, and the zigzag placement makes them easier to separate when you need just a few of that size piece. I do exactly that in small hardware drawers and have the same IKEA metal drawer unit to store my 2x4 & larger plates,
And I saw Huwbot's Clickits in that photo -- they were in ziplock bags he was holding. :)
Oh my goodness! We do exactly the same thing! I am blown away!
Oh my goodness! We do exactly the same thing! I am blown away!
Nice. Its not the first sorting review but I cant believe I hadn't thought of putting larger plates together, as Lego intended, and then putting the joined up ones in a drawer. I have one of those boxes with small drawers and all drawers are just a mess of parts I spend mins just poking a finger in to try to move the contents about so find a small plate or plate modified. I suppose its also time and the number of times you need to use spare, which for me may be a few hours one day then nothing for a week. Also saves space...and looks pretty, if you have a lot of different colours.
That was informative and cleverly written...the tension building as Huwbot scours through your collection in search of his beloved Clickets, kinda like a puppy looking for its favourite toy. Very satisfying to see the conclusion of that little drama.
I am going to start storing my printed tiles on a base plate. Thanks for idea and for participating in the series.
I love how you've put printed tiles on baseplates for easy viewing. That's so simple but never occurred to me.
Ah, finally! Someone else who uses ziplocks and stacks parts. Glad it's not just me.
Probably the most realistic stowage solution for most people, as you tend to use about 200 popular pieces very often so good to have them to hand in easy to reach pullout drawers while you are working, together with the plastic small part boxes on your table. The larger and other unusual pieces can always be found if you remember where you put them at the bottom of the wardrobe? One advantage of zip bags is stowing your current official sets when broken up into a dozen bags if you do not have the space to display, then placing all in a very large plastic zip bag with the instructions before dropping into a plastic homeware container with other sets. Then if you need a special piece you can find which set has it using brickset, check whether you have the set, and then 'borrow' until your next brick mail order arrives.
Some good ideas in here. And Huwbot is adorable! I love it when it's chillin' with its hands behind its back!
Seeing it back again, this cute Huwbot really deserved the win.
I still haven't built one myself yet but will do so ASAP now I've been reminded how cute he is :)
Ziplock bags of pieces isnt something I ever would have considered as a storage solution. It clearly serves you well though, considering the rate at which you produce your fantastic character builds.
Lovely to see Huwbot make a special return to his birthplace.
Follow you on Flickr! Big fan of your builds. Nice collection and storage solutions. Take care.
Useful and practical tips here. I use ziplock bags for storing polybags, not for storing (and sorting) parts. But that's a good way to store items! I like your system because you place high priority parts in easier reach than others. The pics of Huwbot, too cute. I like Huwbot wearing parts on its head.
As other replies have mentioned, putting printed tiles on a baseplate is so smart. Definitely going to use that method in the next sort out.
Similar to mine - and Huwbot is a really good presenter!
I have to say I LOVE HuwBOT! :)
This is brilliant, and I love the photos!
There should be more pictures of Huwbot on Brickset!
I stacked plates and bricks for about 3 months. As I build projects I haven't restacked them and I don't plan to, but I can confirm that is does save volume enough to justify doing it when space is tight. Thanks for the inside tour of your workshop, Eero
@Huw said:
"I still haven't built one myself yet but will do so ASAP now I've been reminded how cute he is :)"
Well, that explains why we never see him on the site...
Nice compact sorting system, congratulations on making it work in small quarters.
In Ziplock we trust (and love and hate at the same time)!
I absolutely love this compact system. I think this is my favourite in the whole "storage solutions" series!
Please can anyone from the UK help, where can I get a beautiful fully transparent set of drawers like the first image? All the ones I find online are always kind of opaque...
Great article! I sort my LEGO very similarly, though I have fewer parts. Ziplock bags for the win!