Legos

[dubweiser]

So lately my parents have been busting my balls to get all my stuff out of their basement.

I recently went over for dinner, and as soon as I walked in they started harping on me to start taking stuff home. The first thing my dad grabbed and pushed at me was a huge keg-cooler bucket full of legos.

So I've got a massive bucket of legos in my living room. The bucket is too big to shove in a closet, or leave around the house.

I've been trying to come up with the best way to organize them.

I started out by separating them by color, and putting them in the larger freezer ziplock bags. This seemed like the best way when I started, but the more i've been researching, it seems like there may be better ways.

I guess my question is - is it better to start by block type, or by color, or both? I know it depends on how large the collection is, but I have no way to estimate how many blocks I have?

As a side note, this whole mini-project is bringing back so many fun memories. As a kid, I spent countless hours building/destroying/stepping on these legos with my dad. I also found some stuff I built as a kid, and I have a lot of my instructions left over. Good times. Nothing but great memories.

[FlyBy]

I've been separating mine by type. I've found that when looking for a specific color that it's easy to wade through pieces that are all the same style. If you separate everything by color you'll have a ton of pieces together and might be hard to look through.

[dubweiser]

Yeah thats pretty much what I'm thinking. Unfortunately I've already gotten 3/4 way through separating by color.

What do you store them in? I was considering buying one or two of these guys:
http://www.harborfreight.com/40-bin-...wer-94375.html

[dubweiser]

So with the snow this past weekend, I spent some time inside and continued to sort based on color. I figured I might as well finish what I started.

Before (with some generic Tyco legos mixed in) :




After (Sorted by color, removed all non-lego stuff) :



At least now they feel more manageable now. I think i'll start sorting by brick type at some point soon.

[speaker]

Organize them, but why?

Half the fun is pawing through them.

[dubweiser]

OCD and building efficiency?

My life is fairly busy, so the little time I get to build, i'd like to spend the time building rather than digging through mounds looking for a single block.

[speaker]

I think some of the best creations my son & I came up with was where we started out with the pile. We may have gone into it to do one thing but we came out with another.