Lego SolutionsSolutions OnlineKids Room Lego StorageKids Lego RoomOrganize Storage RoomLego Rooms For BoysLego Projects For KidsLego Table StoragePlayroom Ideas For BoysForwardWith three boys, I've been battling an ever-creeping LEGO problem for several years now. I've looked for storage solutions online, at LEGO s... What does everybody do with their Lego Boxes? in Everything else LEGO Louise said:They get torn apart and thrown in the recycling bin. I do this also (well, not the tearing apart anyway). I think it helps me convince myself of "see, it's not a total addiction."Then there are instructions. I toss those too except for the bigger sets, like $100+. Though I gotta admit, those are pretty dense and really heavy when you store them in one place. Legoboy said:This thread is making me ill. One person's treasure is another's trash. ;)To those who do keep boxes: How do you deal with boxes that are intended to be torn open (e.g. with the perforated thumb punch)?
In the US, these are generally used for smaller sets, like the Microfighters. Every time I open one of these I wonder how box-keepers handle it. @natro220 said: ...someone please tell me I did the right thing...You did what you needed to do at that time, which means...you did the right thing. TyresOFlaherty said:Seriously, though, those of you who buy/sell a ton of Lego online, does having/not having a box change the price significantly of a set? Once it's out of box, that obviously takes a lot of the initial value away, but does the box itself hold its value?Have you seen the price of a 10179 box recently @TyresOFlaherty? I obviously don't do this with every set I purchase but I've stuck some Cuusoo and Ideas boxes on my wall to make some nice art. My plan is to add more Ideas boxes when I get my hands on them. I keep all of mine. My children's go straight into recycling though. For me, it's the difference between someone who collects Lego sets rather than someone who collects Lego (without the sets distinction).
Of course, there are those who do both (which I am slowly thinking I ought to emulate, but that's for another time and another thread). All these factors influence your attitude towards boxes, but there will be a lot of other, more practical concerns as well. A few weeks back I've discarded some empty small/medium boxes (see pic below).My Lego Box wall now mostly consists of big boxes (which still have some medium boxes inside them). I'm the same as you, @MaffyD. I keep all my own set boxes carefully sliced open and flattened. They are then stored inside large LEGO Store yellow bags, which sit in the closet in my study. It's amazing how many boxes you can store in not a huge amount of space.My daughters' set boxes are nearly all thrown out, as neither they nor I have any use for most them. If you think that is insane, then see this. This is an excellent idea.Helps maintain or drive up the prices for those who keep the boxes. I flatten the large boxes for sets that I think might be valuable in the future.
Any boxes that require you to punch through to open - not taped - immediately get tossed. Those in the middle - taped boxes ranging in size - I either keep flattened, or toss, depending on the theme and my mood. : )Any boxes I've acquired from older sets that are the insert style I keep intact, stacked in paper boxes if they'll fit. What ARE the property tax rates on Dagobah? I'm going to aim for something along these lines...Then again, it's not like the local government is doing anything to beautify the place anyway. Welcome back to Part 3 of my little Lego series. So far I have blabbed about the build buckets and the build table, but I know what you really have been waiting for. What in the world did we end up doing with all of those big bins of Legos? Well, be ready for a picture filled post to find out! First, I have to mention, we have been accumulating Legos for YEARS. In fact, my husband had a giant bin of them under our stairs for the longest time, just waiting for our boys to grow old enough to play with.
Not to mention, as you know we have three boys, so what is always the easiest gift choice at holidays and birthdays? This project started out with four large Rubbermaid bins full of Legos, along with the craft drawers we attempted to use as storage as well. {we only had one small cart and it just wasn't big enough for our growing collection}. My initial reaction was to sort out the pieces by type. Bricks, boards, wheels, etc... They wanted things done by color. They were so nicely reminded it was going to be their duty to maintain whatever new system we implement and that the whole point was to make building easier and more fun for them. So I let it be their choice on how things were done, and sorting by color won. The next step was to come up with the best way to containerize all of the pieces by color. I instantly knew the IKEA Trofast system was the way I wanted to go, but I did try and think up other alternative solutions... I had nothin', so Trofast it was!
Then came the REALLY fun part. OK, not so much fun. But we tried our hardest to enjoy it. We all sat together, surrounded by bins, watched movie after movie for an entire day and a half until it was done. I had the boys help me for 75% of the time. I figured if they were part of the sorting process, they would appreciate it more and be more apt to help maintain all their hard work. It's been a couple of weeks now and I am happy to report, so far SOOO good! When it came to labeling the bins, I sat on this one for awhile. I wanted to do vinyl with my Silhouette. And I wanted the words on the front to be the same color as the blocks in the bins. So when I looked online and in stores at vinyl prices, I about had a heart attack. 10 bins at $7 minimum a color... um no thanks. I did some research and heard about adhesive backed cardstock. Again, $5 per color and not every color I needed. Then it hit me! I could use regular colored cardstock, cut the words out with my Silhouette, and adhere them to the fronts of the bins myself, all while saving a TON of moolah over the alternative options!
Whew, almost struck out, that was close! So that's what I did. I started cutting out letters from each color of cardstock. The best part of this was that I could use shades of the color that I liked vs. the harsh, primary color that Legos usually are. I used Dr. Seuss shaped font, it is for a playroom after all! To adhere the letters, I wanted something that would last. And look clean and resemble the look I would have gotten with the vinyl. So I went with Mod Podge in a matte finish {which is the same finish of the Trofast bins}. I used some painters tape to give myself a straight line to work with and to ensure the letters were placed in about the same location on each bin. Then, I used a brush to "paint" on some Mod Podge, stick the letter on the bin, and then Mod Podge over the letter to really make it stick. Don't worry as you are doing this... it gets worse before it gets AMAZING.... Once all of the Mod Podge dried, you wouldn't have even known it was there to begin with!
The only items we didn't do by color were the boards and little people. The boards got a large Trofast bin, the people got a smaller storage box. So did all the manuals. Again, I hashed out manual storage options. I originally was going to binder them into plastic page protectors. But I know my boys. I imagined that over time, they would take the manual out and it wouldn't easily find its way back. So they now just get piled in a storage box and it's done. I am very OK with that since I want it to be easiest for them to maintain. When it comes to the "builds" they create, sometimes they like to keep them for a little while {however, they play with Legos because they love to create and build, so they don't seem to be too concerned about keeping their sets together for long periods of time}. I wanted to give them a place in their new playroom to begin displaying their creations, so we installed some inexpensive shelves above the Lego storage bins. Up until now, they have never really had a place to display their projects, which is why you don't see anything up there right now.