Learn how to organize LEGOs with simple and inexpensive products to create a system that’s easy for the whole family. Plus, get a free printable to help organize LEGO instruction manuals!
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.
LEGOs are at once the bane of my existence and my favorite way to buy 30 minutes of relative 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 are a hazard to my bare feet and pretty useless to my kids. It’s no fun for them to start working on a project only to realize the piece they desperately want to use is nowhere to be found.
There are loads of 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 (Based on Reality)
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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 LEGOs in the playroom and neatly put away all the pieces 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.
So, after asking both kids for their opinions, here’s how we now organize and store LEGOs at our house:
Easy LEGO Organization Ideas You Can Do Now
Where do your kids play with their Legos? Where do they want to play with their Legos? My son agreed that his bedroom is 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.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 Instructions
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 Lego types (regular bricks and Duplos), therefore everyone knows where to get the Legos, 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 the kids sort pieces just three simple ways.
- The system is flexible. When the kids grow and want to organize Legos a different way, 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 those manuals! Paste this free printable on the cover of your Lego instruction manual binder, or slide it under the binder’s plastic cover. This printable and many others are available exclusively for subscribers of The No Pressure Life newsletter. You’ll get an email to confirm your subscription, then another email with the link and password for the library of free printables.
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 Lego boxes all over the house! Because we organize Legos in 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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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.
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!
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.
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! 🙂
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
I agree! Although, I must admit that I color code my closet. 😉
The worst part of legos is stepping on them! But I love the bins! Thanks for the post !