Lego blocks. LEGO. Legos. That word sounds really weird really fast.
We love and hate them. I only really hate them when I step on their razor sharp hard as steel tiny but you are gonna wish you were dead edges.
Tiny Twig started a little conversation about Legos the other day on twitter:
Then Heather chimed in:
And Caroline added some ideas:
I completely agree with Caroline that Lego blocks are an investment. You can’t play with them without using your imagination and getting creative~toys don’t get much better than that. And these days at 13, my oldest has outgrown toys and only plays with sports equipment, and the only toys that our 9 and 10 year olds play with are Legos, and not so much lately. Did you hear that? My kids are almost done playing with toys!!! Legos are all that’s left and they are hanging on by a thread. And it makes me sad. These boys are growing up so fast and now I don’t mind seeing a few stray Legos. I might even be guilty of sprinkling a few blocks around the house hoping to remind them to play with them.
While yard saleing {my favorite sport} with Angela on Saturday, we hit a house selling “fill a gallon bag with Lego blocks for $1″~ jackpot! I brought a bagful home and crossed my fingers that they would work their magic and sure enough, within the hour our two youngest were all about the Legos again.
A few years ago I finally gave in and accepted the fact that the easiest way for the boys to play with Legos is to dump them {the Legos, not the boys} in a wide mouth container so they can sort through their collection IN the container instead of dumping it on the ground. We moved from a metal bin to a large lined laundry basket and now it’s so full that they still can’t look through everything but, it’s easier than a tall narrow container.
So here’s Lego central in our house. Nothing all that life changing. The fella up there with Lego on the brain is the one most addicted so he keeps most of them in his room. We brought in a table so he could have a big building surface and there’s the basket full of Legos. As they’ve gotten older the Legos are downstairs less and less. Sometimes when we get in the mood they’ll bring the basket downstairs and we’ll dump it out in the family room and I’ll pick out the rouge marbles and hot dogs ends and used band aids. Then we have a contest to see how fast we can clean it up.
What about you? How do corral Legos? Do you love or hate them?
My youngest son (who is celebrating his 24th BD today) created with his legos until he left home. I stored them in the attic for when grandkids came to visit. When (youngest son, who is a Marine now) was home recently with his wife and little baby, he found the huge lego box in the attic and declared, “Hey, these are MY LEGOS, they go home with me!” Some never out grow legos! I was kinda sad to see them go…both my son and his legos! :)
My son, who just turned 12 wanted to sell his legos on ebay. He did for a pretty penny and bought an ipod touch. I wish I would have saved them like you!
We keep our legos in big plastic Rubbermaid bins in the basement. Out of site! WHen I close the door, stray ones are not in my eyesite.
We keep ours semi-organized in plastic shoe boxes. I would have FREAKED at the a dollar a gallon sale. I can never find used Legos.
Let Legos rain all over your slip-covered, hard-wood-floored cottages in wailing, primary-colored squalls. The day will come too soon when there will be a bathtub-sized plastic bin of forgotten knights and their tiny suits of armor, rejected space invaders in their geometric battle-starships, unwanted half-built castles and maids unrescued from unbuilt dragons. The searing shock of pain from an unseen Lego embedded in the bare foot at 6 a.m. is nothing to watching them fly away, which they must. Enjoy every single chaotic minute of the house looking like Toys R Us after an earthquake. It just goes by so darn fast.
Wow! This is wonderful advice. You brought a lot of memories to my heart and more than a few tears to my eyes.
My son just celebrated his 10th birthday this weekend in which I cringed every time he opened a gift of new legos. Your comment changed my thinking. Thank you for putting it all in perspective!
It is hard for me to express in words how jealous I am of that garage sale find.
Then again, if I had come by it, I might be *actually drowning* in LEGOs, depending on the available supply.
We put Lego in one of those big plastic under the bed storage boxes that has wheels and a lid. It works great because it’s shallow and my two boys can find pieces that way. Plus if they’re not playing with them (rarely), it slides under their bed. Dust pans are great for scooping up Lego when it’s time to clean up. Best toy ever!
We have a long bench from IKEA with two huge bins that slide in underneath. One side holds all the lego blocks and the other holds all the Playmobile. The boys (I have four sons) can pull the huge (2′ x 4′) bins out, sift through the lego and build away.
You made me laugh so hard! My family consisted of 2 sisters and one brother who loved his legos. We girls complained morning, noon, and night about stepping on his legos. My poor mother refereed numerous arguments over lego induced foot pain and threatened constantly to get rid of them all if he didn’t keep them cleaned up. ( She never did.) Finally one day after several power hours of barbie play, my sister and I left our mess all over and my brother lacerated his foot on Donnie Osmunds microphone… (apparently Donnies’ mike had turned serated steak knife somehow!)
3 sutures and a tetanus shot later ( can you get lock jaw from a barbie mike?) we girls never complained again.
Donnie and Marie continued to live happily with Charlie’s Angels and the Bionic woman in the Barbie townhouse in case you were wondering!
My son just moved away from home and I was cleaning what he left behind I found all of his legos and k’nex. Man that was hard!!! It all happens too quickly when we look back. Right now I am going thru the stage where the house is clean, there is no trash, no noise, etc… I’m telling you embrace the Legos!
Ahhhh Legos. I have been stepping on them and finding them in every nook of our house for 7 years. I also have 3 boys (10, 8, and 4). They love their Legos. They are by far the best toy investment we have ever made. Hoping my 15 month old daughter loves them just as much. Love that idea of filling the gallon bag for $1. I will remember that when it’s time to clear out. Thanks for your inspiration!
Oops, the whole point of my comment was to tell you that each of my boys has a tub under their beds filled with Legos. The rectangular, clear plastic under-the-bed containers with lids are perfect because they are shallow enough that the kids can dig through to the bottom — no dumping out necessary!
I’m 23 and I still play with LEGOs. I’ve graduated from the generic bricks to the more intricate themed sets (e.g. Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean). I’m also an avid LEGO video game player, I’m finishing up Pirates of the Caribbean tonight before the midnight premier. My mom is glad the sets stay put together on my shelves, until I come home to visit, then they’re everywhere again.
IKEA has some of the best storage bins for LEGOS. My son is 9 and he LOVES Legos, about the only toy he still plays with, besides Hot Wheels. The bins we use have small wheels on the bottom and the lid has a handle hole, does that make sense, so when we find the strays we can just drop them in. We have to be super careful now because we have an 11 month old little girl walking all over the house. It never fails, she always finds the smallest Lego that we could have been looking on the floor for 20 minutes for! I have to admit, I enjoy Legos too!
My daughters keeps theirs in a shallow, wide Ikea box that’s made to go under their bed. Wide enough for them to search for things, but also it can slide under a bed and be out of sight.
An under bed-style storage box (but not quite as big). Seriously shallow, plenty of room to stir and search, yet still tall enough to put in some still-intact building projects when playtime is over. (lol . . . I just finished this, and looked up to see Alecia’s comment about the same thing! Great minds . . . )
I really love legos . . . and since my youngest is 6 months (oldest is 11, with four in between!), we’ll have Legos around for a long, long time. I just wish we could do Playmobil, too. ;)
After awhile we got really anal and bought Rubbermaid containers, sorted by color and put them on shelves. Then along came collecting cards, video games, a computer, etc. etc. The Legos still sit in those clear containers and nothing I can say will convince their owner it’s time to get rid of them. The owner is 25 now and figures he will give them to HIS son if he ever has one. Legos are forever…but not so little boys. That was a song somewhere, wasn’t it?? :-)
We’ve just begun the Lego journey- I held out as long as possible, but we’re in with both feet! :) So far, we have less than a plastic shoebox…I’ll count my blessings! :)
I have six kids (four boys, two girls) ages 21, 17, 11, 8, 6, and 3. My oldest three kids are boys so we’ve had Legos in the house for a very, very long time. We have SO many Legos! We even have some hand me down Legos from the 80′s. So, what to do with all those Legos? How to store them in a way that encourages my youngest four kids to play, without dumping them out all over the floor? I got a small size plastic play pool! It sits in the corner of the playroom and is the perfect Lego coral :o)
My youngest son is 10 and he eats, sleeps and dreams legos. ALL. DAY. LONG! He used to share a room with his middle brother before we moved, so he had a trundle bed. After moving here, he no longer needed that extra mattress in the trundle, so it has become lego central! (and it is FULL!) Imagine a space the size of a twin mattress full of legos…all the way to the top! lol He also has two bookshelves with all his star wars sets that he’s completed, full too! He scours yard sales, flea markets and even asks his friends older brothers in a search for more legos. I am enjoying every single minute of it, because he has two older brothers that don’t play with toys anymore, so I’m drinking in every second of my youngests childhood! :0)
Have a great day!….
and when your kids have outgrown playing with their legos, invite me to your yard sale, I know a little guy that would love to buy them! LOL
Missy
Love, love, love them. For the most part, they reside in our basement now in big Rubbermaid bins. But every Christmas my boys would be so disappointed if they didn’t get their Lego sets….and get this, they are 24, 22, and 19! It is a tradition. And they sit and put them together on Christmas day…makes a mama’s heart warm :) Of course, the sets have become more expensive, but watching them put their heads together and figure out all the fine details, is priceless!
All you Lego lovers need to visit Lego Land at Mall of America in Bloomington, MN. It’s spectacular. I recommend Googling images of it.
We use these boxes from IKEA….
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10073345
My 6 year old son and 4 yr old daughter love Legos! I went OCD and separated them all by color to put in these boxes. So far they have remained relatively “sorted”, and my son puts his finished creations on his large bookshelf. I would have died to find the garage sale score you found!!
Save the LEGOS! Don’t throw them away!
I saved the Duplo and the Lego and now my grandkids play with it. The Castle Lego and the Pirate Lego are Gramma house toys. We keep them in a padded bench with a lid (that now has a strap around it to keep the toddler out) and the rule is the Lego has to get put away before they go home. Sunday dinners everybody’s playing Lego, even the 20-something uncles.
LEGO related foot pain – 18 years ago, I stepped on a piece of circus duplo, the stuff with the wheels, lost my balance so that my entire weight came down on the sharp pointy hurty bit, and then the wheels moved and I fell down the stairs. My foot still hurts.
A friend just posted this on her FB page. I think its such an interesting way to store/play with legos. Perhaps when my girls are a little bigger and have that massive collection my husband dreams about. http://swoopbags.com/
This is how I organize legos, including lego label download:
http://heatherjslife.blogspot.com/2010/08/lego-storage-labels-free-download.html
My kids are almost completely done with toys, too. :-(
~Mrs. Jones
We are just entering the Lego stage, and as with all stages, there are emotions that come along with them. I find myself changing with the stages…the desire to have everything ‘in its place’ is starting to be replaced with, ‘leave there til morning, they’ll be gone soon enough’! A saddness enters my heart as I watch Lightening McQueen and the dinosaurers being replaced by ‘bigger boy’ toys, and that is perhaps why I haven’t removed the ‘little boy’ toys out of the bins and into the attic. Secretly inside, I am hoping to see him return to that little stage once again…so for now, I open my arms wide and say, “Welcome Legos, please come in and stay!”
This has probably been mentioned, but I don’t have time to read all the comments and I want to put it out there just in case!
Two years ago, I bought a white, twin-size flat sheet at the thrift store for $1. Then I laid it out on the living room floor and dumped all of the Legos on top of it. I bundled it up from the corners and placed it in the Lego bin, just like that! I thought it would be too hard for my kids to manage, but with minimal instruction, my then-four-year-old was able to haul it out and spread it out flat on the floor himself. My kids play Legos on the sheet to their hearts’ content. Now at six, he can do it easily, and so can his younger brother.
It has completely eliminated the Lego mess! I cannot recall the last time I stepped on one. I highly recommend this method of storage!
this may have already been mentioned, but our son keeps his in a large flat under-the-bed storage container on wheels. flat so that the legos can be rummaged through without dumping out (although some still end up on the floor ~ just not as many). and on wheels so it can be pulled out and put up easily. our girls do not have a large collection so they keep theirs in the original lego containers. the youngest is at the mega block stage and those are so large it does not really matter.
no matter how they are stored, the clear ones still get stepped on!
p.s. i like the idea of the commenter before me and the thrifted sheet… wish i had thought of that!
Get a “Box4Blox.” It’s a brilliant idea, and it makes storing those little gems fun for even little guys. You might find that you’ll need more than one…I think that each set only holds 2000 legos, but it’s very worth it! In addition to the box4blox, we have shallow bins, the type that you can slide under a bed. This way my son can find that tiny little piece he’s looking for without having to dig through a foot of legos. Good luck!
Legos drive me nuts! I am a mom of three young boys and they have them ALL over the house…and dare I say in my van and outside too! I did breakdown and get little bead containers so they have easier access to the mini figures, as they get lost in the huge 22 gal tote of “bricks”. The boys also know that if they don’t pick them up at bedtime the tote goes in timeout…and so it motivates them to do as they are told. But no matter how well they pick up I always manage to find that stray brick with my foot.
I loved lego as a kid, love them as an adult, my kids have such a great time creating fabulously inventive things with them! Janell
Legos are the best/worst! We were passed down a huge box from a friend when my kids were 2 and 4. I knew I didn’t want those things in the kids room or in the upstairs playroom since I knew they’d be everywhere fast. I decided they had to live in the family room right off the kitchen. I tried the under the bed plastic storage box until it got stepped on and broken. Now my kids are 4 and 6 and I’ve found the best place to store the Legos are in our giant , round slipcovered Ikea ottoman/coffee table. I’ve had it for 6 years and always stored blankets in it. The lid comes off and the kids and their friends crowd around it and create. Growing up we had a large round piece of heavy fabric with rope laced around the edge. We’d lay it flat to open it up and play, then when we were done, we’d throw all the Legos back on the circle and pull the strings to form a bag. It would probably be pretty simple to diy.
We sort them in plastic shoebox containers by Color – makes it easier when building something with directions :-) Finished pieces get put into ziplock baggies in a larger tub so when they are not being played with the pieces all stay together :-). I sat for a whole day sorting & building (with my son) but it has worked for the most part!!
great post…so inevitable for every mom of boys.
i finally embrace the legos. one way we’ve tamed them is to by tupperware containers in multiple sizes, each holding various lego sets or pieces. getting to use my label maker made this task bearable (i heart my label gun).
after the lego’s had homes, my husband and i gave in to my son’s legotivity (lego+activity/creativity) and put 3 shelves up in his room to display his creations. he makes em’ and rotates them…. and i no longer step on them! win win!
my husband is 37 and his parents still have his childhood legos. the legos box is dragged out every. single. time we visit the grands. keeping this in my mind i realize “the life and times” of legos is going to be very looooonnnnnggggg in our home! :-)
We keep all LEGOS in train table bins. When my boys, now 9, 12, and 16 wanted (still do sometimes) to dump them out, we made sure we did it on one of their blankets. That way, clean up was EASY, just pick up all four corners of the blanket, bring ‘em to the middle then take it to the bin and dump. Makes playing with LEGOS fun for both mom and boys. :)
Love em and hate em for sure. (Soooo hate stepping on them!!) They are everywhere and once the kids make a creation they love, it has to stay in tact for a while, so they display them in their room on their desk or the extra table we had to give them. My second son who is now 12 says he wants to be a Lego designer when he grows up. I have a feeling they aren’t leaving anytime soon. :)
My best tip for taming the Lego monster is this: Pour all your Lego blocks out on an old bed sheet. Tell your children that they can spread the Lego out, but it must stay on the sheet. When it comes time to clean up you wrap the Lego in the sheet and tip it back into its storage container.
Kate
I had this same issue a couple of months ago. I created a work area for the Legos and organized them by type and color. My son has to clean them all up every night. Here is my post: http://robotshairbowsandstringcheese.blogspot.com/2011/01/airing-my-dirty-laundry.html
Do I ever remember Lego Daze! I had 4 sons and 1 daughter who loved to play with Legos. One idea a friend had (who also had a bunch of Lego freaks) was to put a big rug or sheet on the floor so they could dump the bin of Legos out. When done, you just pick up the sheet and dump them into the bin again.
Jody
I picked up a should be train table for my sons to play on. It has a bit slide underneath drawer that the Lego goes in. My 4 year old was playing with my LEGO collection, then my hubby’s uncle brought over a suitcase full of all my husband’s childhood LEGO with his little cousin’s childhood LEGO added in!
It instantly got a little insane in our living room. I picked up the table thinking it would hold it all but when I brought it home and dumped the suitcase into the drawer it was just like the problem everyone seems to be having, so full it was impossible to sort through it.
I finally just took a bunch of the ‘boring’ pieces and stashed them away in the closet in a bin until my kids are bigger and can keep better track of it (that happens right?). Yesterday my son said, “Mommy can I have the LEGO table in my room?” DEAL!!
We even had a few minutes yesterday when our 2 year old was in his room with the Thomas table and the 4 year old was in his room playing LEGO . . . . ahhhhhhh
Best of luck everyone with your own personal LEGO challenges! :)
Our favorite is the Box 4 Blox, http://www.box4blox.com/ . It sorts the LEGO by size so they’re easy to find. And the lid has handle holes so you can drop stray pieces in. We got one for our son for Christmas and he was thrilled. He still has a locking Rubbermaid for the overflow, though.
Just tonight I was cleaning up my 5 year old son’s bedroom while he was in bed supposed to be sleeping but eating toast ( I know sounds very weird but that’s what you get when you don’t eat your dinner – hunger at bedtime) anyway the ONLY thing he pulls out EVERY DAY and plays with are LEGOS! I love legos, my husband loves legos as do my kids. They are probably the only play time activity I love to do with him when he inevitably whines “mom play with me”. We store our legos in an under the bed plastic rectangular box with wheels on it, and a lid which is hardly ever attached to said box. That way he can pull it out and dig thru the lego’s without dumping them out. That said I still find them everywhere ALL over the house but I can’t bring myself to get mad as I love them just as much as he does. LONG LIVE LEGOS!!
Bless, Lisa
I like the low shallow bin idea many have suggested. We have been using a big, deep basket and it’s just too deep to dig for the really good stuff.
I can’t even believe there will be a day they won’t play with toys anymore. Denial.
We use the former train table….with the big slide out bins underneath. They build on the top, it’s big enough for more than one kid, and dump everything underneath…it’s perfect!
We use an Ikea bookcase and bins for the legos. Our old train table has been transformed into a lego work area. The boys display their favorite creations in their bedroom’s expedit bookcase. Despite my best eftorts to keep them corraled, the legos wander the house. I have started a mini-figure display in my kitchen window. So far, I have 16 minifigures who must have wandered downstairs looking for a snack lined up in the window.
We recently decided, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. We moved what used to be the “Train Table” into the living room, as a “coffee table” and stored the legos in the drawers beneath. Interestingly enough, company ends up fellowshipping around the ‘lego table’ and building. Practically, it has helped them to stay in one place, they just were scatteredin the bedroom, and now they stay pretty tidy :) – Gina
My kids & husband love Legos. So, in our living room we have one of those tool parts bins from Costco that other people would put in their garage. It’s made of metal & has four shelves, & 20 bins of various sizes. Each bin has a label on it for certain types of bricks (like wheels, red bricks, windows/doors, etc.). Our “coffee table” too is a train table my husband built when they were into Thomas the Train. Needless to say, all visitors love it (though it’s still work to have sorting days to get pieces back where they belong, but my kids are 9 & 11 so they can do it).
I am way late to this conversation, but saw this while catching up on my blog reading! I got tired of the crazy mess of Legos always in our house. I finally bought clear plastic drawers for them, and sorted them by color. I have found that my son plays with them way more now, and has a much easier time putting his sets back together b/c he can find the pieces easier. It was a huge chore to do at first, but has made our Lego lives much easier!
my kids display their lego in bookcases and the loose pieces are kept in small plastic garbage bins. they try to keep them sorted by color. however, pieces pretty much end up all over the house by the end of the week. i shudder to think how much we have spent on lego. they would have went gaga over the 1 gallon bag for a buck.