Learn how to organize LEGOs with simple and inexpensive products to create a system that’s easy for the whole family.
They are everywhere. They hide between rug fibers, fall through heating vents, get stuck in the garbage disposal, and appear on nearly every surface of my home.
LEGO are at once the bane of my existence and my favorite way to buy 30 minutes of peace on a Sunday afternoon.
That is until a sibling squabble sends colorful bricks and tiny yellow people flying into the air.
When LEGO pieces are all over the house, they’re hazardous to my bare feet and useless to my kids. It’s not fun to start working on a project only to realize the piece they desperately want to use is nowhere to be found.
There are many easy ways to organize LEGOs, but most of the options I found involve using power tools to create a DIY solution or sorting LEGOs by color.
I just want the damn LEGO mess off my floor and my kitchen counters. I don’t have time to build something fancy, and the mere thought of sorting hundreds of LEGOs by color gives me (more) gray hairs.
How to Organize LEGOs Once and For All
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How many times have you organized the playroom, only to have your efforts go to hell because no one (besides you) puts stuff back where it belongs? Chances are you organized based on your dream situation and not reality.
Dream: The kids play with the playroom and neatly sort all the LEGO pieces by color into color-coded bins.
Reality: The kids play with LEGOs everywhere, but mostly in my son’s bedroom and rarely in the playroom. My LEGO-loving oldest has a hard time putting anything away, so it’s unrealistic to expect him to clean up extra pieces by color.
After more failed organization systems than I care to count, I recently realized this:
If you don’t organize with your family’s needs, desires, and abilities in mind, your system is doomed to fail.
Sick of that pile of papers on your kitchen counter?
Ask yourself these questions before you start organizing all the LEGO parts:
Where do your kids play with their Legos?
Where do they want to play with their Legos?
My son agreed that his bedroom’s a sensible spot to store and organize LEGOs – at least the more “grown-up” sets. We put Duplo Legos in another spot – more on that later).
Sick of stepping on Legos but can't bear the idea of sorting those tiny bricks? Try this instead.The Best Way to Organize LEGOs Quickly
After asking both kids for their opinions, here’s how we now organize and store LEGOs at our house. It’s fast and easy!
Yep, that’s right. We’ve found that the best way to organize LEGOs is by barely organizing them.
His room is small, so I created my own LEGO storage box with a clear under-bed storage bin to contain the mess.
I went room to room gathering every single LEGO I could find and brought all of them upstairs to my son’s bedroom, and then sorted them into three categories based on what my son cares about:
- People and animals
- “Special” parts
- Everything else
Two small plastic bins keep the people/animals and small special parts separated from the jumble of other bricks and abandoned creations. My six-year-old and his four-year-old sister agreed that it’s ok to keep both of their LEGO sets together (sibling agreement is a wonderful and rare thing!).
How to Organize Duplo LEGOs
All their Duplo Legos are now in one big bin in our IKEA Trofast storage system in the playroom. The bin is manageable for my oldest to carry upstairs when he and his sister want to use them.
How to Organize LEGO Instruction Manuals
All the Lego instruction manuals are in plastic sheet protectors inside a three-ring binder on my son’s bookshelf.
Keep reading to get a free printable LEGO Instruction Manual binder cover!
Why This LEGO Storage System Works
- There’s one spot in the house for each of the two major LEGOtypes (regular bricks and Duplos), therefore everyone knows where to get the LEGO and where to put them away.
- The under-bed storage system is perfect for small spaces yet large enough to hold many LEGOs.
- Clean-up is easy since kids can sort pieces just three simple ways.
- The system is flexible. When the kids grow and want to organize LEGOs differently they have the freedom to do so.
Related: 10 Clever LEGO Display Ideas That Will Show Off Your Kid’s Creations
LEGO Storage Ideas that will Control the Chaos
While we’re happy with our simple LEGO organizer, if you want to sort the bricks even more here are some additional storage options. Just click on an image to shop for the product.
Free Printable for LEGO Instruction Manual Organization
Organize LEGO manuals! Just paste this free printable on the cover of your LEGO instruction manual binder, or slide it under the binder’s plastic cover.
Free PRINTABLE
LEGO INSTRUCTIONS BINDER COVER
Keep LEGO instruction manuals organized in a binder! Sign up to get this free printable binder cover plus access to many others in my resource library!
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LEGO Organization that Lasts
It’s such a relief to know that all their building bricks have a home, instead of fifteen half-empty storage bins and broken cardboard boxes! Because we organize LEGOs a simple way, the whole family can easily help maintain the system.
Are you ready to round up the bricks and save your bare feet from further injury? Tell me how you control the toy chaos in the comment section below!
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Sick of that pile of papers on your kitchen counter?
readingisbetterthanchocolate says
Ooo, it looks so neat. We have a ‘Lego room’ – aka ‘the guest bedroom’, but we never have guests so it works perfectly. I don’t go in there. Ever.
Liza says
Yip! It’s pretty much what I’ve done for the kids too. A zillion Lego sets are all placed in a IKEA trofast box (I love the little hole on the top as it makes it easy to pop pieces in) and all the instructions are filed in a file on his book shelf. Easy Peasy!
Angela Higgs says
My son had a loft style bunk bed in his room and we converted the top bunk to be “Lego Central”. My husband put down a sheet of plywood and then we had some containers to hold the legos, although the reality was that the legos were all over “Lego Central”. As he grew older and created some great lego creations, my husband added a shelf to the wall above Lego Central for him to display and store the creations. My son was about 5 when Lego Central was created and is now 17. While he no longer climbs up to play in Lego Central, he still proudly displays his lego creations.
Laura says
Wow! That’s such an incredible idea. I’m still working out how to display the creations. We definitely need to build some shelves because they’ve taken over his desk! 🙂
ashley gucker says
this is genius it makes me so mad seeing the color separated organizing ideas! like do their kids even play with the legos or are they just there for looks haha
Laura says
I agree! Although, I must admit that I color code my closet. 😉
Asia Rosario says
The worst part of legos is stepping on them! But I love the bins! Thanks for the post !
Kimberly says
I think you did not address the size of said collection size dictates the level of sorting. We are around 40-60 gallon size collection. I have 5 tool sorter and sort by color.
Silverware trays work great we have one for door one for Windows one for tires one for arches on for fences.
Rob says
Firstly, I hate it when people refer to Lego’s! Lego is just Lego, even in plural. More than 1 peice of Lego is still just Lego. Also, sorting Lego by colour is the worst idea ever for organising Lego. Lastly, chucking it all into one big plastic box? That’s not actually organising it at all!
Ali says
My son has probably 10 times as much Lego as you show here, and yes it’s sorted by colour into a Really Useful rainbow tower (we recently added a 3 drawer extension too!). To answer some of the comments above, he does play with it most days, and it makes it a lot easier to find pieces when building from instructions. It also encourages free building and it looks great 🙂 He has a red Lego brick storage box where he puts his finished models for a while, until they get dismantled, then the pieces go back into the correct colour drawer and he starts building something else. His instructions take up a whole drawer, and he has a tin where his Lego people live, it’s tidy, organised and it works.