Lego organization

We've had a Lego problem at our house for a while now. The Cheese absolutely loves, loves, loves Legos. They are by far his favorite things. And slowly, over time, I have learned to hate them.

I remember my friend Kim talking about how her daughter's stuffed animals had become her nemesis. She hated them. They multiplied in her daughter's closet. They seemed to breed every night creating more and more for my friend Kim to find a home for. I now understand what Kim was feeling. This is why...


See this pile of Legos? This picture doesn't even do the pile justice--you really can't get a good sense for how big the pile actually is unless you get down there in it. But this is what happens when you son asks for nothing but Legos for every birthday and Christmas for three years straight.

Something had to be done about the pile (the pile is usually in a large plastic box that the Cheese would never open.)

I told my son that if he wanted any more Legos--ever--that he had to start playing with the ones that he already had. He understood (for once) and told me that he wanted to play with them, but it was too hard to find the pieces that he needed in his gigantic Lego box.

Mama needed a plan. An organized one.

I headed to Target. I bought four boxes in the small, medium and large size that they had in the clear plastic with snap top lids. I took the Cheese with me and he approved the box selection.

My plan was to separate them by color. The Lego instructions (they now come with instructions that show you how to build things) give you a list of what pieces to use. So, the plan is...if he needs a flat red piece, he'll go to the red box to find it instead of having to dig through the giantic pile from Lego hell.


We sorted...and sorted...and sorted...and sorted.


At the time I took these pictures, we were still sorting Legos. It was a big pile--it took about a whole weekend to tackle. The boxes now fit nicely on the shelf in his closet, right where he can reach them and get them down all by himself.

I made the Cheese do a lot of the sorting to help him take ownership and pride in the organization. It seems to have worked. So far, he's kept everything very organized and just today built one of his Exo-Force Lego guys that he hasn't built in months and months.

So worth the organizing and the sorting, the sorting, the sorting. So worth it.