Lego

What is it about those little Lego men that we all love so much?  Is it that they seem to live the perfect lives?  How many of us can rebuild and redesign our homes or cars whenever we like?  How fun would that be?!  As I recently stumbled across a small colony of these little guys in my house plants, I couldn't help but smile; they inspire a creative spirit and have brought joy to many a home for so many years, it's no wonder they have won a spot in our hearts. 

With the love of Lego there comes many a storage issue.  Plastic totes and shoe boxes overflowing with those loveable little building blocks is bound to be a recurring problem us parents should have dealt with yesterday!  I'm pretty sure that anyone with kids will confirm with me that stepping on one of those 1x2 blocks is liable to make you keel over in pain and curse the little pieces that for some reason we still adore.  Here's what we have done to keep the cursing to a minimum in our house:

1) Jars.  Who doesn't have jars laying around in their kitchen cupboards?  We've filled them with pieces, (easily sorted by color) which not only makes it easy to find *just* the piece we're looking for but makes it a cinch to put away leftover bits from projects.  Nevermind the fact that they look great lined up on the bookshelf...

2) Rubbermaid totes of all shapes and sizes.  Yup.  You guessed right; this is another way to store unfinished projects, complete with instructions for finishing either never or some distant month in the future;-)

3) Shelves.  OK.  So seriously, your kid has built something like one hundred little models; where in the world do you store them all?!  Shelves is one of the only practical answers.  We like the shallow shelves for the cars and the smaller projects but also have some deeper ones.  The nice thing about the added depth is the kids can 'play' with their masterpieces on the shelves themselves, kind of like a little table that ensures no pieces will end up in your path. 

4) Seating with storage.  We have been so lucky to have tracked down some half size piano benches at second hand stores and from good friends.  The fun thing about them is the seats themselves are so simple to recover that they fit into any decor.  The best part about them = the seat itself lifts off to reveal storage underneath.  Nevermind that they are unique, cool looking and a great addition to any room.  PLUS they are perfect to pull out whenever extra guests show up at your house for an unexpected (but welcome) visit.  We like to store completed instruction manuals and those tempting Lego magazines that keep showing up in our mailbox every month or so.

5) Picture shelves.  OK so I *swear* those little Lego guys are breeding like rabbits.  Tossing them all in a plastic tote or jar just seems wrong; after all they are SO.DARN.CUTE.  Nevermind the fact that hopefully I'm not the only Mom who has picked up a set just because I liked the little person on the box.  You know the shelves~ Ikea and Jysk sell them; they are about 2.5 to 3 inches deep and have a little ridge on them to display pictures and art in an interesting and easy way.  Perfect for lining up all those little men and ladies and that protective little edge keeps them from falling over in a drunken stupor.

How do you store and sort your kid's Lego?

Lego storage ~ a dream come true?  Perhaps.  But no matter how organized and fun they look displayed and stored, those teeny, tiny, little building blocks kids (and adults) have adored for decades seem to end up under our feet.  Darn.  Good thing they are cute.