If you're a parent to an elementary age (or older) kid, you know that LEGOS are a common sight around the house — on the dining room table, on the floor, on the coffee table… on just about every table in the house. My son loves to build where the family is — he's not crazy about going to a "LEGO table" in the corner of the house — so I needed to come up with a solution to our LEGO problem, to save our sanity, our organization, and the bottom of our feet.
I decided to make him a LEGO cart — this way, he can store all of his sets, pieces, and characters (as well as projects in progress), and he is free to work on the dining room table, the kitchen table, the coffee table — wherever the family is congregating. He can work where we are, and then when he's done, back on the cart it goes, and we can park it in its place (right now it parks in my office.)
I ordered this cart from Harbor Freight for around $50… a little pricey, but it's worth it to bring some order to our LEGO madness — plus, I can use it for lots of other purposes after we're out of the LEGO stage (or when our stash outgrows the cart — a frightening thought!)
We store loose pieces organized by color on the top shelf :
And a rimmed baking sheet holds the current project.
Other bins hold loose instructional booklets, other sets (bagged in gallon Ziploc bags with their booklets), and minifigures and accessories.
It's been a lifesaver for trying to keep our tabletops clutter-free, and it's a solution that works for him — he gets to hang out with the family while he builds!
(Images: Sarah Dobbins)
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• Look! LEGO Walls
• LEGO Storage Ideas
• Lego Storage Workstation
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I live in a condo, and must BBQ down by the pool, I have a small Bodum Frykat grill and recently purchased the same cart to use as my BBQ cart, it holds all my BBQ supplies and i can just roll it out of my storage unit into the elevator and down to the pool when i want to. It works perfectly!
Love the lego cart idea!
Awesome! The librarian in me just loves this cart and a great idea for lots of movable storage and display.
Amen. Great idea and great for Playmobil too. We have a 5 yo, 4 yo and 15 mo twins who think Legos and Playmobil are an all-you-can eat buffet. Thanks for the great idea.
It would be great to put a large tray on the top to hold works in progress also
Cute. But talk to us when you own about 6000+ legos. Seriously. My son & daughter now have so many sets it's out of control. We have 2 of those under bed storage containers filled to the brim with them all mixed together. No way in the world will I organize them by color- that would take days & we are not organized/ ocd enough to keep them that way. I don't mind sitting down with them to help build things for half an hour or so.
When my kids get new sets (birthdays, Christmas or when they spend their saved up money), they will build them, play with them for a couple of days & then dismantle to make crazy ships, cities, etc. We have a rule that we must clean them up off the living room floor each night & back into the bins. Their bedrooms are small, but there's enough room to keep a few built items out & then we can just push the small pieces aside or back into the bins.
I don't think $50 is pricey at all!
what a cool idea! this storage can easily grow and evolve with a growing child's needs. love it.
I think these would make a cute little bar cart also :)
Sturdy and portable are key for storing Legos, because they can pack together quite densely and overwhelm flimsier storage with the collective mass. We currently use the Ikea Attityd free-standing kitchen drawer set:
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/40016834/
The drawers are one-piece molded units, so they are very strong and you can fill them up all the way to the rim. And they extend almost the full length of the drawer.
I also think this is cute for the very young child just starting out on their Lego life, but I agree with tallsarah. I would need 20 bins for yellow alone. We gave hundreds of Lego sets. People give them as gifts to my boys for all holidays and birthdays. We had to move to a tall shelf unit with bins and bins. But they do play with them all the time.
I am loving the bold floor design. And.... Cute cart. And... We use a small tool cart in our guest bedroom for bedside storage.
One idea that my dad did for my son when he was in the Lego stage. Take all the instruction booklets, laminate the pages and put into a three ring binder. (Or you could use sheet protectors, but laminated pages are sturdier.)
Some of the instruction sheets may need to be cut apart and/or color photocopied, but it keeps the directions from getting lost/shredded. J liked to make a kit, then take it apart and he'd use the pieces in other constructions. Having the "parts list" and assembly instructions meant that he could usually get back to some version of the original kit later if he wanted to.
PS, very cute cart. I can see it used for a lot of things.
Okay, you got me again! I saw a toolbox used as a change table some time ago and we did the exact same set-up for our son. It's now in his room holding his clothing but as he grows and the clothing gets bigger, it's harder to fit much in there...we're going to convert it into toy storage for his room (or I think my husband is coveting it for his workshop!)...but we will definitely be doing this for toy and art supply storage in the living room so there are not too many things underfoot! Thank you for this great idea.