We Finally Found a LEGO Storage Solution that Works

Ours is a LEGO-loving family. My wife and I both collected them as kids. I took fastidious care of my LEGO sets, and still have all of my models and their instructions, plus a small (very small!) list of pieces that have been lost over the years. As with many families, LEGOs make for easy gifts, especially with the advent of licensed sets like Star Wars and Marvel; they make regular appearances at Christmas and birthdays in our house.

Our boys — nine- and twelve-years-old, respectively — didn’t quite inherit their parents’ detail-oriented curation of their LEGO sets, relying instead on digging wily-nilly through mounds of the plastic bricks. But that’s okay — what’s more important are the hours of creative play we get out of the classic toy brand.

Early on in the pandemic, however, as our boys settled into schooling from home, they (of their own volition, I swear) began sorting their mounds of LEGOS. They magically began organizing the pieces by color, and my quick-thinking wife made a dash to IKEA to find the perfect solution to keep them organized: the TROFAST storage bins.

We chose the shallower bins for easier digging, and ordered a pair of black tiered shelves. The descending tiers break up the outline of the units, so we’re not left with a giant, rectangular black box taking up the corner. The bins slide easily in and out on rails, and the tops of the shelves make for perfect displays for finished creations.

My wife had the vinyl labels designed and printed locally at American Sign Studio, although you could easily create them with a label-maker or stickers (maybe colored in by the kids?) at home.

We sorted the bricks by color, designating specific bins for windows, wheels, train tracks and minifigures. We also saved one bin and labeled it generically as “Sets,” for those half-built chunks that don’t need to be dismantled just yet.

The pieces still get mixed up — there’s no stopping that. But every few months we’ll schedule a quick family sorting party, putting on some music from a Bluetooth speaker while we break down and arrange pieces together.

It’s kept the boys more engaged with their LEGOS, has helped clear the family room of those tiny foot-destroying pieces and provided our not-as-fastidious-as-their-parents kiddos with a system to keep their favorite toys organized.