Tell me--what do YOU do with Lego sets at your house?

[Kidlit]

DS10 has many sets that are complete.  He did keep a lot of them on the shelves of a console table that was behind the loveseat in our living room. For me it was kind of "out of sight, out of mind" because I rarely noticed them and I doubt many people would due to the location of the table. Yesterday we got a new-to-us living room suite (suit? Set?) and the console table will have to go, so currently the legos are on our kitchen table. 
 

what is your Lego solution?

[Katy]

I’m not sure my family situation is at all similar so it probably won’t help… The one kid that cares about them has shelves in his room to display them. When he runs out of space he has to choose which get donated.

The kids who don’t care about them play with them until they fall apart. When I inevitably step on tiny sharp pieces I throw them out. DD4 still puts things in her mouth (probable autism, oral stimulation thing) and I consider them a choking hazard, which all the kids know. They can keep them if they stay in their own rooms, but if they’re on the floor in common areas they go in the trash without notice. No one seems to mind. 

[Kidlit]

7 minutes ago, Katy said:

I’m not sure my family situation is at all similar so it probably won’t help… The one kid that cares about them has shelves in his room to display them. When he runs out of space he has to choose which get donated.

The kids who don’t care about them play with them until they fall apart. When I inevitably step on tiny sharp pieces I throw them out. DD4 still puts things in her mouth (probable autism, oral stimulation thing) and I consider them a choking hazard, which all the kids know. They can keep them if they stay in their own rooms, but if they’re on the floor in common areas they go in the trash without notice. No one seems to mind. 

Youngest of 4, no littles, here.  He has some in his (shared) room, also.  
 

may be time for a hard conversation 😬

[ikslo]

DS takes them apart and uses them to build other things. Then he takes those apart and builds more. Basically, he plays with them. He has the directions in a bin in case he wants to ever build the original again, but part of the fun of Legos for us is not having to dust them. YMMV

[lovinmyboys]

I’m probably no help. We have several IKEA shelves (the cube kind and the floating ones) full of Lego creations. I have four boys who all were into Lego at one time (and a couple who still are) so we have lots of Lego and no one wants to get rid of them. It is such a hassle too because we have moved 3 times with a large collection.

I also have several bookshelves of games and books- so that is how our house is decorated, shelves of Lego, books, and games.

[Kidlit]

Just now, lovinmyboys said:

I’m probably no help. We have several IKEA shelves (the cube kind and the floating ones) full of Lego creations. I have four boys who all were into Lego at one time (and a couple who still are) so we have lots of Lego and no one wants to get rid of them. It is such a hassle too because we have moved 3 times with a large collection.

I also have several bookshelves of games and books- so that is how our house is decorated, shelves of Lego, books, and games.

Sounds. . . like home 🤣

[TheReader]

Well, I'm coming from the other end of the timeline here, but here's what's gone on with Lego in our house. 

Three boys - youngest is 18, all still live at home while they pursue college/career/whatevers. We lived internationally for 6 yrs, and when we came home the kids brought ALL the Lego back, in tact. The older 2 relegated the Lego to youngest's room. When we did that, we were buying furniture anyway, so bought various Ikea shelves (we got the Trofast system for bins to store the pieces, and on top could be display pieces). 

Then we added the big shelves with the cube slots but not cubes (the ones that replaced the Billy; I forget what they are called - kalaks? something like that). Then we added some more. Etc. 

We've *just* this last month moved the shelves into a common area (we swapped the computer area for Legos, now that everyone is on laptops vs desktops - out went the desks & antiquated computers, in came the Lego shelves). So, there's a wall full of display pieces, a wall full  of storage bin/Trofast shelves with bins, another half wall of Trofast, a table against the couch for building (they still build, recreate, take stuff apart, make new things, etc.) (all of them, the 18 yr old, the 22 yr old, and the 25 yr old). there are still display pieces in everyone's individual bedrooms as well, but basically we have an obscene amount, until you factor in: three boys, two decades of Lego, none tossed in any of the international moves (even the "we're coming home with just our luggage and the kids are now 16, 13, and 8" move), and now it's all in one location more-or-less. So, it's a lot.....but what other toy did you buy your kid at age 6 and he still has at almost 26? 

[Kidlit]

@TheReader Thank you. That's beautiful. 

[JustEm]

I decorate my house with them.  

[Katy]

Can you add more shelves in his room? Over his desk? We don’t allow shelving over beds here for safety reasons. 
 

ETA: if he needs help choosing which to donate, try having him pick his favorite first, to put in the most visible location. Then 2nd favorite and 3rd and so on until he runs out of apace and needs to donate the rest. The shelving space is the bad guy, not you. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Katy
Clarification & typo

[Ali in OR]

This 57 year old still enjoys Legos, so I'm okay with having some sets up around the house--mostly a few Harry Potter pieces displayed on the desk in the girls' room (they live elsewhere now). But I also have my Winter Village house in our study along with HP's Privet Drive house and whatever Kylo Ren's ship is called. The sets that aren't up are stored in bins mostly still completely assembled. The Winter Village sets are with other Christmas decorations in my closet--they come out after Thanksgiving. Harry Potter and the few other sets we have are in bins under the girls' beds--once in awhile when both are home they all come out for a bit. I think I need another bin which is why the most recent Christmas gift builds are on the desk.

Could the outgoing console table fit in his room or somewhere else in the house?

Edited July 14, 2023 by Ali in OR

[MrsMommy]

We have sets on display literally all over the house. Many of them are mine. 🙂 I collect the modular buildings and have a whole Main Street in our den, and I bought bookshelves specifically with displaying them in mind. Since I have so many sets of my own on display, it seems disingenuous to tell other people that they can't, so my children also have stuff in the main parts of our home as well as their rooms. And then there's the basement, which is Lego central!

[Amoret]

My kids have outgrown daily Lego playtime, but they still have their favorite sets on the shelves in their rooms and they use various minifigures and pieces for other things like tabletop role playing games. We have been slowly disassembling the others and putting the pieces, together with the instruction books in extra large (2 gal, I think) zip top bags and storing them in banker's boxes. At some point, I want to go through them and match up the pieces with the lists and order any missing ones from pick-a-brick, but that will be a huge job and one I can't do until all of the pieces are together.

[mommyoffive]

41 minutes ago, MrsMommy said:

We have sets on display literally all over the house. Many of them are mine. 🙂 I collect the modular buildings and have a whole Main Street in our den, and I bought bookshelves specifically with displaying them in mind. Since I have so many sets of my own on display, it seems disingenuous to tell other people that they can't, so my children also have stuff in the main parts of our home as well as their rooms. And then there's the basement, which is Lego central!

Oh wow, I would love to see how you store all of them.

[Arcadia]

We never had space to display as my childhood home and current home are small. So completed sets are taken apart and put away in many 18 gallon totes. I have been playing LEGOs since I was 3 and since my mom regretted not keeping mine, she bought for my kids since they were toddlers. I am in a local Adult Friends of LEGOs group. 

[mommyoffive]

1 hour ago, TheReader said:

Well, I'm coming from the other end of the timeline here, but here's what's gone on with Lego in our house. 

Three boys - youngest is 18, all still live at home while they pursue college/career/whatevers. We lived internationally for 6 yrs, and when we came home the kids brought ALL the Lego back, in tact. The older 2 relegated the Lego to youngest's room. When we did that, we were buying furniture anyway, so bought various Ikea shelves (we got the Trofast system for bins to store the pieces, and on top could be display pieces). 

Then we added the big shelves with the cube slots but not cubes (the ones that replaced the Billy; I forget what they are called - kalaks? something like that). Then we added some more. Etc. 

We've *just* this last month moved the shelves into a common area (we swapped the computer area for Legos, now that everyone is on laptops vs desktops - out went the desks & antiquated computers, in came the Lego shelves). So, there's a wall full of display pieces, a wall full  of storage bin/Trofast shelves with bins, another half wall of Trofast, a table against the couch for building (they still build, recreate, take stuff apart, make new things, etc.) (all of them, the 18 yr old, the 22 yr old, and the 25 yr old). there are still display pieces in everyone's individual bedrooms as well, but basically we have an obscene amount, until you factor in: three boys, two decades of Lego, none tossed in any of the international moves (even the "we're coming home with just our luggage and the kids are now 16, 13, and 8" move), and now it's all in one location more-or-less. So, it's a lot.....but what other toy did you buy your kid at age 6 and he still has at almost 26? 

Oh wow, I would love to see it.  I wish we had room to do something like that.  But I am thinking about getting a lot of bookshelves for our main room so they can display sets.  I love the sets as art.  I hate Lego and would never find building it fun, but I think the sets are so pretty and would love them around as decorations.

[Boymama5]

We each keep our personal legos in our rooms. So mine are all complete on a shelf in my closet until I build a shelf for them in another room. My boys each have their own. Only my 5 yo has complete sets and plays with them. The other kids just have ikea bins of them.  Each do have a kallax shelf in their rooms with space to display if they’d like 

[Carrie12345]

This isn’t fully filled yet, but it was one of the first things I started when we moved in. Our “formal dining room” is devoted to Lego, records, puzzles, board games, and video games.

There are others packed away and in kids’ rooms. And an IKEA bin shelf of parts on the wall opposite of this.

I hate dusting Legos, and this reduces that need GREATLY!

[ScoutTN]

2 hours ago, ikslo said:

DS takes them apart and uses them to build other things. Then he takes those apart and builds more. Basically, he plays with them. He has the directions in a bin in case he wants to ever build the original again, but part of the fun of Legos for us is not having to dust them. YMMV

This. Though Ds usually has a few large ones that are fully assembled at any time. A big orange one from the Guardians of the Galaxy has been almost finished on my coffee table for several weeks! Ds has legos all over his room at all times. Do not try to walk barefoot in there at night!! 

[Faith-manor]

Build them?

Okay, so the adult males moved.out and took their prize Legos with them. But every once in a while I see new Lego kits that are so cool, like the Christmas Carol Dickens set or the flowers, or the James Bond car, and I say, "Aren't these cool?" which my adult children take to mean, "Mom would love to build these Legos". This resulted in me being gifted the Dickens, the flowere, and the car at Christmas. That was fine. I love that my kids put thought into these things, and along with the Legos I got new sewing snips, replacement gingher shears, etc. They are great kids! But, it has now morphed into something that has scared the tar out of me. They all went in on a Lego kit of one of my favorite Van Gogh paintings, StarryNight. This darn kit is something like 2000 pieces. It is still sitting on the shelf. None of the kids know I haven't built it yet, and Mark has been told to keep him mouth shut about it. Now I had a crisis. ALL of them will be home Aug. 5 and 6. With four of them, a daughter in law, and a son in law traipsing around here somebody is going to notice it isn't done even if I hide the box. " Mom? Where your Starry Night?" 😮 I leave for vacation at 3 pm today. We don't get back until July 23. I will have 13 days to get ready for company/grandsons AND build that darned monstrosity! 😱💀

Legos can kill. If you never hear from me again after July 23, you will know I expired in a pile of Legos.

[Faith-manor]

My grandson has some shelves in his rooms for the ones he wants to keep together. Then he has several tubs with lids that the Legos are sorted into for building, and those are in the closet.

[Ottakee]

12 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Build them?

Okay, so the adult males moved.out and took their prize Legos with them. But every once in a while I see new Lego kits that are so cool, like the Christmas Carol Dickens set or the flowers, or the James Bond car, and I say, "Aren't these cool?" which my adult children take to mean, "Mom would love to build these Legos". This resulted in me being gifted the Dickens, the flowere, and the car at Christmas. That was fine. I love that my kids put thought into these things, and along with the Legos I got new sewing snips, replacement gingher shears, etc. They are great kids! But, it has now morphed into something that has scared the tar out of me. They all went in on a Lego kit of one of my favorite Van Gogh paintings, StarryNight. This darn kit is something like 2000 pieces. It is still sitting on the shelf. None of the kids know I haven't built it yet, and Mark has been told to keep him mouth shut about it. Now I had a crisis. ALL of them will be home Aug. 5 and 6. With four of them, a daughter in law, and a son in law traipsing around here somebody is going to notice it isn't done even if I hide the box. " Mom? Where your Starry Night?" 😮 I leave for vacation at 3 pm today. We don't get back until July 23. I will have 13 days to get ready for company/grandsons AND build that darned monstrosity! 😱💀

Legos can kill. If you never hear from me again after July 23, you will know I expired in a pile of Legos.

Save it and have them help you build it….as a family memory.

 

i did a 4000+ piece Taj Mahal made with micro bricks with my daughter

[Spryte]

Oldest (31) displays his important, current sets. Most stuff when he was younger was taken apart and stored in bins, some of which he passed down to the next kids.

Middle DS (19) and DD build small and medium size sets, display briefly, then all pieces are stored in bins. We have two Trofast units filled, and two of the very, very large Rubbermaid bins in a nearby closet.

We do have a few of the very large sets that stay out on display in the bonus room area — expedit shelves are good for this. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Spryte

[wintermom]

What I wanted to do with finished LEGO sets: Take apart, put in container so that the dc could make all kinds of new and interesting creations.

What actually happened: Cat peed all over the LEGO pieces in the nice containers. LEGO went out in garbage.

[Kidlit]

46 minutes ago, Faith-manor said:

Build them?

Okay, so the adult males moved.out and took their prize Legos with them. But every once in a while I see new Lego kits that are so cool, like the Christmas Carol Dickens set or the flowers, or the James Bond car, and I say, "Aren't these cool?" which my adult children take to mean, "Mom would love to build these Legos". This resulted in me being gifted the Dickens, the flowere, and the car at Christmas. That was fine. I love that my kids put thought into these things, and along with the Legos I got new sewing snips, replacement gingher shears, etc. They are great kids! But, it has now morphed into something that has scared the tar out of me. They all went in on a Lego kit of one of my favorite Van Gogh paintings, StarryNight. This darn kit is something like 2000 pieces. It is still sitting on the shelf. None of the kids know I haven't built it yet, and Mark has been told to keep him mouth shut about it. Now I had a crisis. ALL of them will be home Aug. 5 and 6. With four of them, a daughter in law, and a son in law traipsing around here somebody is going to notice it isn't done even if I hide the box. " Mom? Where your Starry Night?" 😮 I leave for vacation at 3 pm today. We don't get back until July 23. I will have 13 days to get ready for company/grandsons AND build that darned monstrosity! 😱💀

Legos can kill. If you never hear from me again after July 23, you will know I expired in a pile of Legos.

This TICKLES me!  I have coveted that set but never really verbalized it for fear of what happened to you happening to me.  
 

maybe it should be a family project!  

[cintinative]

Currently nearly everything is dismantled and and is in those scrapbooking bin shelves plus some cheaper screw/nail containers we bought at Harbor Freight.  I also have some plastic drawers that we store built sets. 

The big problem will be reassembling our minifigs one day. My kids have many many mini-figs that they bought when they put out the various collections. But they are mostly all disassembled and some of the hands are missing (youngest went through a kick where he removed hands--they probably got lost in the vaccuum).  

My oldest sold his Halo Megablocks sets for $$$ so we are hoping to pull the pieces and sell the complete sets one day, but honestly that would not be possible without my boys' help. So we'll see.  

 

[Alte Veste Academy]

The idea of throwing away LEGO…🥺🤯

Even if no emotional attachment, they are $$$$$$.

If anyone has any LEGO to toss (cat pee and all, because bleach exists and they are plastic, LOL) I will gladly pay for them to be shipped to my LEGO Rescue. They will be well cared for here. 😂 

 

[Alte Veste Academy]

To answer the actual question, the LEGO solution here is that my boys display their favorites in their room. I display their Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter sets in the loft/library upstairs on shelves next to their corresponding books. All of the modulars are in my office. All of the Winter Village sets are either stored assembled or broken down (if they are older and need a good cleaning before the next Christmas) in book boxes in my closet (never the garage because it is HOT here and heat degrades plastic). 

The rest of the sets have been broken down, sorted by color and type, and stored in a gigantic console cabinet in my office.

I was never into LEGO and just bought them for my sons and, for a while, some Friends sets for my daughter. When LEGO came out with the Winter Village theme, I started collecting them for us as a family, thinking it would be a good way to get the kids into a winter village. My parents had one that I never cared about, but I thought LEGO would be just the right thing to make it a yearly family project. After that, I realized how much I loved the detail of the adult sets and started collecting modulars. So now I have the full set of modulars, the full Winter Village, the Statue of Liberty, all of the newer flower sets, etc., and I’m part of AFOL, Modular, and Winter Village groups online. 

And I truly would pay shipping for any LEGO people want to get rid of. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Alte Veste Academy

[Kidlit]

Now I am personally interested in the Christmas village.   🤣

[Alte Veste Academy]

4 minutes ago, Kidlit said:

Now I am personally interested in the Christmas village.   🤣

It is my favorite. About this time of year is when I start trolling the internet for leaks to see what the new set will be. 

[TheReader]

3 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

Oh wow, I would love to see it.  I wish we had room to do something like that.  But I am thinking about getting a lot of bookshelves for our main room so they can display sets.  I love the sets as art.  I hate Lego and would never find building it fun, but I think the sets are so pretty and would love them around as decorations.

I'll see if I can figure out deleting some pics to be able to upload new ones. If I get it figured out later, I'll come back and post pics. But basically it's however many of the big Kallax shelves fit on one long wall, and each cubby has sets in it. The other 2 walls on either side have the Trofast stair step shelves with the slide in/out bins in different sizes, for loose pieces. The arranging of the displays is not complete, I think, as we just kind of quickly moved everything and the guys are slowly but surely arranging things how they want. 

It's one half of a big, open room upstairs, so one side is the "game room" (couches/big square coffee table, board games, D&D space, etc) and the other half of the room has been my sewing room, then the computer area, and now the Lego area. Anyway, I'll try to figure out posting pics. 

[Arcadia]

@mommyoffive my dream LEGO room

Photo link https://www.cnet.com/culture/this-guy-has-the-most-insane-lego-collection-in-his-basement/

 

video 

 

[mommyoffive]

46 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

@mommyoffive my dream LEGO room

Photo link https://www.cnet.com/culture/this-guy-has-the-most-insane-lego-collection-in-his-basement/

 

video 

 

Crazy.  I would want more areas for display.  Maybe the lower half for building but the top half display.  They really are pieces of art

[Clarita]

We don't do sets. I mean I've bought them but in our household they don't stay sets for long. So all of it goes in a bin (or 2 or 3). My son will keep his current creation in some box or container. 

My son's and my Legos are all mixed together, we like making our own creations rather than follow directions. My daughter has a small trofast bin that keeps the one set she likes. Duplos go in their separate bin. I kept mine from childhood and my BIL isn't ready to part with his from childhood so the kids get to play with a set at grandma and grandpa's house.

[Alte Veste Academy]

32 minutes ago, Clarita said:

We don't do sets. I mean I've bought them but in our household they don't stay sets for long. So all of it goes in a bin (or 2 or 3). My son will keep his current creation in some box or container. 

My son's and my Legos are all mixed together, we like making our own creations rather than follow directions. My daughter has a small trofast bin that keeps the one set she likes. Duplos go in their separate bin. I kept mine from childhood and my BIL isn't ready to part with his from childhood so the kids get to play with a set at grandma and grandpa's house.

In the beginning of our LEGO buying, I was like this. The issue (beyond the Star Wars sets my boys were addicted to) is that the coolest collection of interesting pieces comes from accumulation of the sets. When you just buy the bins of parts LEGO sells, you end up missing out on a huge variety of pieces that let the imagination really run wild.

[Clarita]

Oh no my kids get some of the sets I was just saying they all get put into one bin. Also my kids are too young for me to buy the really expensive collectable sets.

 

[Indigo Blue]

I just asked one of my adult sons if he wanted to take the Lego train set to his house so I could make a bit of space in my closet. It’s electric. Ds said he would take it. The rest of their Lego sets are in the attic. The old Wild West set (my favorite) and Lego chess, which is totally awesome, and others.  They have always loved their Lego sets. 

[TheReader]

@mommyoffive - okay, I deleted old photos I had here, so I could upload these ones for you (and anyone else). 

I haven't gotten up there to get more recent pics, but these are the "after" from when we first swapped everything. The wall on the right (that you can't see) has one of the stair-step white shelves too (the Trofast ones). The kids have since filled in some of the gray shelf, the tops of the Trofasts....and there's still more. (ahem). 

Also, some of these *are* their own creations that they've made from other stuff - Oldest has a whole Steampunk thing going, which I'm hoping will end up as it's own display one of these days or at least grouped where you can see it. 

Also-also, this doesn't count the ones in their own various rooms - Youngest kept one of the black shelves in his room for his "personal" stuff, and the other 2 also have shelves in their rooms with their sets, and Oldest keeps the Christmas/Winter Village stuff somewhere and brings it out (and we add to it), and....like I said. Three kids, two decades of Lego (and counting). 

 

 

 

[TheReader]

36 minutes ago, Alte Veste Academy said:

In the beginning of our LEGO buying, I was like this. The issue (beyond the Star Wars sets my boys were addicted to) is that the coolest collection of interesting pieces comes from accumulation of the sets. When you just buy the bins of parts LEGO sells, you end up missing out on a huge variety of pieces that let the imagination really run wild.

Mine have reached the point where they will put sets on their Christmas wish-lists/bday wish lists that make us scratch our heads in confusion.....until we ask them, "Wait, are you getting this for the *set* or for a *piece* in the set???"  (sooooo many times the latter is the answer....mostly we roll with it, within reason). 

[Dmmetler]

On 7/14/2023 at 4:57 PM, TheReader said:

Mine have reached the point where they will put sets on their Christmas wish-lists/bday wish lists that make us scratch our heads in confusion.....until we ask them, "Wait, are you getting this for the *set* or for a *piece* in the set???"  (sooooo many times the latter is the answer....mostly we roll with it, within reason). 

We might have bought 6 Knight busses to get a lot of purple.... 

 

We now have an entire closet filled with bins of legos, plus two boxes with the dragons still assembled and wrapped up. The Orc fortress lives on DH's file cabinet, Doctor Who and LOTR live on my bookshelf, and a bunch of spaceships live on DH's office shelves. 

[TheReader]

1 hour ago, Dmmetler said:

We might have bought 6 Knight busses to get a lot of purple.... 

 

We now have an entire closet filled with bins of legos, plus two boxes with the dragons still assembled and wrapped up. The Orc fortress lives on DH's file cabinet, Doctor Who and LOTR live on my bookshelf, and a bunch of spaceships live on DH's office shelves. 

I want to laugh at the first part, and heart the rest! 

The pic I showed is only a portion. We do also have Lego in the living room (the flower bouquet, but now I also want the wildflower bouquet), and stuff scattered/displayed wherever it makes sense.