if you’re a lego parent, you’re probably also drowning in legos!! it’s an endless unbeatable battle to stay organized when it comes to the most challenging toy in existence to organize.

when you search the internet for lego organizing tips, there are endless posts because there really is no great, perfect way to organize them. once your kids get INTO lego, they basically just take over their room or your playroom or your whole entire house and you need to actively stay on top of it in order to keep them organized. i speak from experience, as my childs legos have taken over his room and i have also googled how to organize legos many, many times!

deciding how to best organize them all and figuring out where to put them can be really overwhelming, so i thought a big post with lots of ideas and inspiration could be helpful for fellow lego parents!

how to organize your kid’s legos

step 1: understand your kid’s play style

when thinking about organizing legos, consider how your kid plays with them. do they like to build sets according to the instructions only? do they like to keep their sets together or break them up and rebuild? or are they more into free play and coming up with their own creations? or all of the above!!

step 2: go through allllll the legos

it’s scary, i know. but the first thing you gotta do is start dumping everything out and taking inventory of what you have.

if there are any sets they’ve outgrown, don’t play with anymore, or that are missing tons of pieces, consider donating them or breaking them up into legos to sort. really try to pare their collection down as much as possible and get a sense of what types of legos your kid has and really loves. btw — you can also order replacement bricks for your sets on lego’s website.

we have an embarrassing amount of half built sets that arlo wanted to keep intact, but then they got destroyed while playing and we didn’t fully disassemble so it basically just looks like a lego city apocalypse in his closet.

if you don’t own many brick separator tools, you can buy them a la carte (they save your fingers!) and maybe even invest in a lego vacuum (i want one!!)

step 3: come up with your system

we’ve had to devote a lot of space in our sons room to his legos. half of his desk drawers are for lego pieces and a few shelves in his closet store the sets stored away. the more sets he acquires over time and the less sets he’s willing to donate, the more crazy it will inevitably get… but back to how to organize!

once you’ve figured out how your kid likes to play and what they have, organize based on that. and include your kid in the process!

if they like to exclusively go by instructions/set, i recommend organizing their legos by the original sets with the manuals inside.

these bags below are really nice and sturdy, and i like that i can fit multiple into a box that i then tuck into the closet, but i don’t love that i can’t see inside that well and they don’t have a separate slot for the instruction manuals. i do love that they’re deep and you don’t risk the pieces going everywhere unless the bag topples over.

these bags are nice because they have handles, a slot for the instructions and you can see inside, but they’re not deep and the loose legos can easily spill everywhere — i don’t know about you but i’ve spent mannnnyyy hours of my life trying to find one missing piece during a build mid tantrum and i definitely prefer NOT to lose pieces lol.

if your kid likes to build more freely and doesn’t care as much about sets, you may want to think about organizing your legos by categories only and not worry about disassembling and storing sets when they’re done. some examples are:

• color
• brick type/size
• figures/minifigures
• special or unique pieces (trains, plants, animals, cars, food etc.)

if your kid likes both kinds of building approaches, you might want to figure out some particularly loved sets to keep together and then have a separate area of legos for them to build whatever they want. you could organize this area too or just have a big fun area of legos for them to go crazy with.

it might also be a good idea to separate out any special or expensive/rare sets. you can put these on display throughout their room and then it doubles as decor for them. and you can rotate the displays out to keep it fun and encourage them to keep building.

lastly, consider if you will realistically keep up with your system. for example, maybe don’t organize by type if you think you/your kid won’t stay on top of it. or you might end up not sorting the legos at all and that’s totally fine, too.

we naively organized by type for 2 days to have it end up in shambles with no real order now. many people warned us, but we didn’t listen and it has NOT stayed tidy. the most important thing for our drawer “system” was to have a place to put everything back and encourage free building. despite the lack of organization, arlo manages to build freely just fine.

what we have to do (but don’t actually do, yet) is just re-organize every 6 months or so to stay on top of it, but life gets in the way of these things!

how to store your kid’s legos

once you’ve figured out how to divide up your kid’s legos, think about how you want to store them. clear storage bins can be useful to see what’s inside and can look cool if you’re choosing a more monochromatic system like color. but if you think seeing all the legos inside will drive you nuts (guilty) you’ll definitely want to opt for closed storage.

some ideas of ways to store organized legos:

• standalone storage cabinets
• in their closet
• under the bed
• a repurposed trundle bed
• on the wall / on wall shelves (great if you don’t have a lot of floor space)

how we have our lego setup

we have two trofast units from ikea and had a desktop built on top (with a small backsplash to ensure no lego pieces fall behind). on the left side, we have 9 drawers devoted to lego pieces.

on the desktop, i keep a tray that has handles and tall sides for him to build on. (we actually keep a few extra trays in his closet for when he’s working on multiple things, but we try not to let him do that much these days because that’s how things get out of control)

i also got him a little “outbox” — it’s a place where we can put whatever pieces he’s left out away but so they’re still nearby and accessible versus putting back in the drawers. these are the bins we use, ours are just a different size.

the lowest shelf is where he can display finished builds, but his closet currently has a ton we need to repair or disassemble too (planning on it to be a big summer project)

and here are a few examples of how other people stored their kids collections too …

these are sets that are put back into bags and then stored in drawers. such a tidy organized way to do it (but not much room for free building later). definitely type A organizing right there!

a really beautiful example of closed storage, you would never even know these stores legos inside!!

this one organizes legos by categories and then has a separate area organized by color and people and then an additional area just for storing instruction books.

a nice example of a painted storage cabinet and very cute lego-themed shelves.

clear bins with labels organized on wall shelves.

lazy susan/turntables can be really useful for both storing and building!

this one uses bins, shelves and drawers inside a closet.

okay so hopefully you feel inspired now! and to help you get started, i rounded up lots of good looking lego storage options for you below.

storage bags

organizing bins + drawers

lego building tables

a few cute lego tables — great if you have the space for them! it’s always really nice to have a place to build that isn’t the floor.

helpful lego tools + accessories

these aren’t essential, but they’ve really helped us maintain our lego system!

i hope this post was helpful! if you have any advice or systems that have actually worked for keeping your house from becoming a lego explosion, i’d love to hear them!