Lego Storage - Part 1 - Retrofitting Cabinets

Our children are OBSESSED with Lego. That is all that they think about, talk about and I'm sure, dream about. My oldest child (also known as my husband) has a separate, but just as extensive, collection. He keeps it hoarded in his office on the top shelves out of harm's way...did I mention that he is 37!!!

Needless to say, we need an intervention organization plan. Each system needs to be different as they will be used differently. Mr. has more of a Lego "collection" where the kid's Lego is played with on a daily basis. Currently, this is what we are looking at for a starting point (excluding the Mr.'s, as I mentioned, it's hiding upstairs.)

The cardboard boxes and the table beside me are full as well...gah!

Our kids range in age from 9 to 1 years old.  Our youngest, Audrey, has started playing down in the basement toyroom now, so her big brothers' mess just isn't safe. We are planning a complete remodel down here, so right now we just want to get stuff off the floor and somewhat organized.

We are always trying to use what we already have (which saves moola for the bigger reno) so we salvaged these two wardrobes that were left behind by the previous owners of our new house.

A few months ago we moved them from the storage room to this little nook in the toyroom area which will eventually be the dedicated Lego space. Today, we are finally getting around to retrofitting them with some fixed MDF shelving to properly house all of this stuff!

We chose fixed shelves vs adjustable simply because we had most of the supplies already on hand. Plus, we have multiple containers from past Lego projects that we wanted to re-use, so the sizes were already determined.

First, we got all hands on deck (well, except for me because I am lazy the photographer) and picked up all the Lego from the floor and cleared out the cabinets.

And this is what we were left with....

Shall I say it again? Gah!

Then the boys removed all the original hardware in the closets.

We measured the height of the cabinet and then divided it up according to the sizes of the containers that would fit on each shelf.

We cut 3 support boards for each shelf, the back and two sides. 1x3 pine was our wood of choice as it was really inexpensive and we knew it would be getting a few coats of glossy white paint.

We then leveled, glued and nailed those boards into place.

And we ended up with this...

Once we got moving along with the retro-fit, we stumbled upon a few ideas to make room for their Bionicles (which are the Lego 'robot' looking guys.) The boys really don't like to play with these as much if they are not sorted and assembled. So a smaller shelf was made in the second cabinet to keep these guys separate and hopefully more organized.

I'm not the type that needs each shelf to be the same height as the others for uniformity, I just need them to properly fit what's going there. So when the bottom shelf of the right-hand cabinet ended up being an odd height, no worries...we will make something fit in there! Plus, there are doors on these babies for a reason!

We used 5/8" thick MDF shelving from Home Depot. They pre-cut all the boards to size for us - free of charge. We measured our largest container and decided on 16" wide shelves. Our cabinets are 21" deep, so the shelves could have been deeper, but I find things get lost in the back with extra deep shelves.  Plus, I have an idea for a door project that will need those extra few inches for clearance. More on that later...

So there you have it folks! Two retrofitted wardrobe cabinets, ready for some primer, paint and a few new pieces of hardware. We'll keep working on these and be back with an update and Part 2-Sorting and Organizing Lego.

Does anyone else have Lego obsessed little ones (or bigger ones, as in my case)? Or issues with keeping it all organized and off the floor? How do you keep it all together? Let me know!