organised lego storage

I get a few messages about our organised lego storage most weeks, so I thought I’d do up a post to share with you all about it!

Noah (7 years old) had been asking and asking if we could separate his lego by colour and I honestly was apprehensive – it looks great and super organised when separated but I didn’t think he would keep up with it in terms of cleaning and packing up after a busy lego building session! And since he is responsible for cleaning up his own lego mess I really thought the one big tub where it can all be dumped into was a better option. As kids, my brothers and I also had our lego separated by colour and I can tell you we weren’t great at packing it away properly. Noah was adamant about it though and said it would be easier for him to find the specific pieces he is looking for when he builds, and so I said we’d try it out.  

I started thinking about the best way for us to separate Noah’s huge lego collection. As kids we had small individual boxes with lids that stacked up on each other in the corner of our playroom. Then I remembered the amazing Jen from I Heart Organizing did a post about their lego storage using IKEA Trofast units and tubs. Since we already had two IKEA Trofast units in the kids wardrobes I decided to buy a couple more of the smaller tubs and give it a go since that would be our only outlay financially. 

These are two 94cm high Trofast units along with mostly the shallowest of the trofast tubs but since we had a lot of grey lego that all went into a deeper tub. 
It took Noah AGES to separate the lego. Yes, I made him do most of it just so he understood that he has A LOT of lego and that if he really wants it all separated it will take a little more work at the end of the day than throwing everything into just the one huge tub we used to use to store it all in. He got about 70% through it all which I thought was an amazing effort, so we all ended up helping him finish.

We  gave it a trial run for a little while before we decided it was definitely the way to go. Noah LOVES it this way and builds amazing things now that he has his lego separated like this, it’s just perfect for how his brain works while he builds. At the end of the day the lego is for him {and his siblings} so if he is happy and keeps up with the clean up then I am happy!

Since we were super happy with our lego this way, I could’t wait to order these coloured vinyl labels from my very clever friend Kate at Pretty Paper Labels. They’re really sturdy and hard wearing and we’ve had them on our tubs since April. I will share more Pretty Paper Labels love in a post soon, but in the meantime, check out her page here!

For us, Jen’s IKEA Trofast set up is absolutely perfect so ours is not very different at all.
I have found that it has helped to keep the lego mess to a minimum because it’s so much easier for them to find the pieces they’re looking for instead of dumping out the whole tub onto the floor to find their desired piece! And when there is some mess to clean up, or some creations to break up and put away, it’s really not too hard and the kids have been really good at keeping it up. 

Also, we have been using the lids you can buy for the trofast tubs to make the lego a little less visible to the littlest member of our family. This has been working pretty well for us, and although Owen {1 year } is still supervised when he’s in the playroom, we haven’t had too many issues with the lego and access for him since popping all the lids on when the big kids aren’t building.
We will add another unit with tubs down the track once Chloe is keen to separate her lego friends collection, too. 

 I am really not that particular about the colour separation – there are bits of blue in the orange, bits of brown in the green. It doesn’t bother me so much. I have told Noah that as soon as he’s sick of it I would have no problem with going back to a big all in one tub {although I would miss how pretty this set up looks haha!} but he assures me he loves it like this and will never change it. 
Overall it’s been great for us and I’m glad we did it. Noah uses his imagination so much more now and he isn’t as frustrated by not being able to find what he is looking for. The creations that come out of this playroom now blow us away and I put it down to it just working for how he likes to build. 

Obviously lego separated by colour might not be a great fit for everyone! It certainly wasn’t for my brothers and I as kids {even though my mum was really strict about it haha!}

How do you store your lego? Are you an all in one tub family or a separated by colour or by piece family? 

xx