Decluttering Your LEGO Lair

[WesternOutlaw]

I've been wanting to start this topic for some time now, but only this morning as I sat down in my LEGO Lair did I decide to take a few minutes to share some thoughts through this topic, Decluttering Your LEGO Lair.

Let me first start by providing some history.

Space is a challenge for many of us. Some LEGO fans create elaborate storage shelf systems in their LEGO lairs neatly organizing pieces by color, by shape, and by plate. Others, I will refer to as "traditionalists", are more of a box stacking variety. This is especially the practice when one does not do a lot of building and owns a collection of unopened sets. I fall into this category for I recently went on a "LEGO Buying Binge" (over several months with LEGO's great 2011 line-up) in which I purchased all of the POTC sets, a collection of City sets, as well as a few sets from other themes. I hate to admit the fact that most of these have been set aside for a future building date.

This topic isn't exactly about storage; however, but more on the need or the desire to declutter a LEGO lair. I was getting to a point that I could not vacuum my LEGO Lair for a large LEGO Train Town, stacks of sets, boxes of minifigs, bags of polybags, and other things were slowly consuming the floor space like some LEGO blob with a taste for space. The result was a dusty overcrowded room of which I was embarrassed to have visitors. LEGO fanaticism, AFOL madness, or even Pack Rat seem appropriate names. Is this YOU? If so, it's time to STOP!

It is time to declutter your LEGO Lair, as it was time for me.

I had a nice LEGO Train Town atop two large boards resting on a smaller table. It looked something like this a few months ago:

Train Town

Unfortunately, after adding a number of new vehicles, a few additional City sets, a UFO abduction, and finally (the icing on the cake), the Pet Shop Modular that I planned to locate dead center, "urban sprawl" was creeping in. Upon getting ready to place the Pet Shop, I noticed the HUGE amount of dust that told me, I was neglecting my Town. Something had to be done and as I lokked around the room, I realized the time would be NOW.

Over the next week, I slowly took apart everything in Train Town (with the exception of the City Modulars placed high atop some bookshelves) and removed most of the stacked boxes in the room, including numerous empty boxes. I left my train shelved to display my favorite LEGO Train engines, and just a small handful of MOCs.

Train Shelves

I have my old writing table back:

And can even get to my DVD collection that was burried behind numerous small and mid-sized LEGO boxes:

While I no longer have a circle of track for my LEGO Trains, I have gained an apprecition for the sets and MOCs that I do have, and actually enjoy coming into the new decluttered room to type on the computer. I have not ran away from LEGO, but merely organized what I do have and feel relieved that I don't have a huge pile of dust in the room anymore.

One of the biggest advantages is that I was able to display some lighthouses and nautical items that had been burried under boxes in the garage for a few years. I found old pictures and things I had long forgotten. One picture I even went out and framed.

Now I have an orderly and organized nautical-themed office of which I can enjoy:

What are your thoughts on decluttering your LEGO Lair?

Have you had similar experiences?

Has LEGO consumed all other objects in your man cave?

Do you have tips for organizing a LEGO Lair?

Or are you able to balance LEGO with other hobbies in the same space?

Share your thoughts here.

EDIT: oh, and BTW, I can't wait to display the Black Pearl in my new Nautical Office.

[kermit]

Thanks for creating this topic as I am also running into the same problem and with half of the 2011 sets still to be purchased I will eventually end up having stuff on the floor again and my only option is getting another self because i dont dissembled my sets and I am working on a large castle moc ...........I will post some pics of how I have my lego sets when at a later date.............the problem is my sets are rather large and take up a lot of space on their own so most of the time I have to fit in every little set as possible in every open space in between and on other sets, however, sooner or later I am going to have to ultimately break down some of them when space becomes a premium.

p.s. Where did you get that island on your desk its looks cool.

Edited June 26, 2011 by kermit

[Captain Becker]

Indeed this is a nice topic. i must admit at your room or office looks much betetr now. But what did you do those polybags and empty Lego boxes? Threw them away?

As for my LEGO Lair, i am running out of space where to put my lego sets, but dont know where else i could put them. currently i am using those Advent Calender Transparent boxes or whatever they are called in english, where i have putted some smaller parts by colour. This dosent work either. I am soon moving to other city because of my studies, and i am planning to take some of my legos whit me. And the rest of them will stay here. Ill take apart and put them into bags, and into their orginal boxes and put them into storage waiting for me when i return, almoust same thing to Legos wich are coming whit me.

I am also planning to buy my self a home when i have fini´shed my studies and move there whit my Legos, so i am still planning quite alot what to do whit the spacing problem. Maby im just going to storage shelf system, and organize pieces by color, by shape, and by plate as you said. And im going to keep the bigger boxes to get some storage room and only rhe most special ones, like POTC boxes.

Captain Becker

[Buckshot]

Brickster! You and I seem to share similar tastes and similar difficulties. There's a table in the front room of my house set up for a large MOC that is hiding much of my nautical decor. I, too, cannot resist the occasional Playmobil set (perhaps harking back to the good old days when Lego and Playmobile figs did battle for my amusement).

You've done a wonderful job of decluttering. My biggest problem is empty boxes. What was/is your solution? do you flatten boxes?

[rriggs]

I constantly go through a cycle:

1. The built collection grows and grows until there is no more space in my office/LEGO room

2. The built collection stays static for a while as I deliberate over next steps taking potential dust build up vs do I really want to disassemble all this lot?

3. Everything gets taken apart and sorted

4. Start again at 1

I am lucky that my office has two tables that I am able to dedicate to LEGO which allows me to procrastinate between cycles without affecting anything else! My collection lives in a filing cabinet, in small boxes on a book case and in bigger boxes under the two tables when not assembled. Apart from newly bought sets which are built in the living room, LEGO is restricted to my office which keeps it from cluttering up the rest of the house.

Cheers

Rog

Edited June 26, 2011 by rriggs

[Captain Green Hair]

Well most of my stuff is in parts, which are mostly sorted by colour.

Minifigs, technic and some other special stuff go separate.

There are only MOCs together in 1 piece at my place.

At the moment a lot is in storage though.

When the new house is finished by the end of next year, I will further tidy up the collection and I also will have space to do a big layout.

[Modulex Guy]

This is the problem I am faced with right now... and have been for the past few years.

My basement is my LEGO lair, but I try to confine my collection off the billiard table I have and only stay in the back half, but lately (pre-Brickworld build madness) It has crossed over to the rest of the room, built MOCs everywhere, new purchased sets, boxes everywhere, boxes on the floor etc. etc.

Ugh time to get sorting again.

[Hoboman]

Space is a major issu for me right now. Our whole family have outgrown our house as it is. So most of my Lego is in storage tubs.

But there is hope, the wife and I are looking at a new house and it includes seperate rooms for all the kids and an office for me.

My biggest problem is empty boxes. What was/is your solution? do you flatten boxes?

I toss them. I know that will upset some of you, but I just do not have the room to store everything. So I elected to dump the boxes.

[Churchill]

My collection too has gotten out of control. Lets see. Sets in my office, in the back room (sort of my back office/storage), in the kids playroom (up on a window shelf), in the downstairs TV room, in the kitchen eating area, on top of the refrigerator, on the kitchen counter (!), in the dining room, and in my bedroom. There are Trains, SW, City, Creator, Pirates, POTC, CMFs, Kingdoms, a few MOCs, Cars, Toy Story. Pharoah's Quest just got put away. Not to mention the Duplo in the family room.

I'm surprised my wife hasn't kicked me out. I just filled up two containers with sets that were out on display, too. Some of those were sets I recently bought, and like. But what can I do? And I'm thinking about buying some of the new SW? Am I crazy?

I love Lego. I love building it. And I love playing/building with the kids. But something has to give. I was even thinking that maybe I ought to just limit myself to displaying 10 of my favorite sets, maybe rotating them. I don't know if I can do it. But I have to do something. And I have to figure out how to quit buying so much!

At least my wife has convinced me to quit buying sets for my daughter. She just likes to build (she's three!). But it's pretty bad when I can't go in any store that sells Lego and not buy her a set. Honestly, though, I think she has the most fun recently just building out of the bucket for an hour or so the other day.

I'm hopeless.

PS: On the kitchen table, and the kitchen counter. Seriously, why does my wife let me stay here?

Edited June 26, 2011 by Churchill

[madoka]

I have a fairly large collection (e.g. overflow parts go into 100 gallon containers, five separate storage rooms, etc.), so I had to go to a much more extreme solution. I bought a second house next door, so that I could have one house to live in and another for Lego. Hey, it works for me.

[Vindicare]

TheBrickster, how big is your table in that first pic? And how many baseplates was the layout(X x X).

Right now, I have no Lego out, they're all bagged and in storage bins. Getting ready to move. But, when I did have them built, I had a partial city layout along the fireplace, and SW stuff in my room. The rest were bagged. I'd buy new sets and build them. Then I'd admire them for a few days then break them down and store. When it comes to boxes, I chuck 'em. I use to keep them, but the pile became too much.

[ZO6]

Funny that you should make a thread about this, Brickster, I just finished a large 'de-cluttering' of my room!

My Lego lair is still my bedroom. Save for having my bed in one corner and a dresser with a computer in another, every surface of my room is covered in shelving for Lego. Unlike many, nearly every set that I own is built and on display. I have a reasonable sized collection (somewhere in the range of 400 sets), and currently about 250 of them are out on display. I then have around a hundred more built but hidden away, and then nearly a hundred more in storage in bags. If I could display everything that I own I would, but space is severely limited. I've recently had to become much more creative in the way that I display my sets in order to maximize the amount that I can put out. Unfortunately it's no longer physically possible for me to display everything, so I've been forced to bag up many sets.

I'm usually very good about keeping my room very tidy, and I try to dust my Lego about once a week (I use a large blower bulb - it's meant for blowing dust and junk off of and out of camera equipment, but it works wonders for dusting Lego too). As additional safe-guards, I have UV resistance plastic on my window, and a portable dust filtration unit. A couple of times a year I always seem to fall behind in storing my new purchases, and this past winter was particularly bad. Between October 2010 and March of this year, I purchases a huge amount of sets, but unfortunately I didn't have anywhere to put them. I was, and still am under the attitude of "I'd rather buy the set and have nowhere to store it than not buy it and regret it later". So what happened was that I had a good 50+ sets assembled and laying on the floor, sets stacked 2+ high here and there, and stack of boxes up to my ceiling, and simply just a ridiculous mess. Thinking back, it's really quite absurd how much of a mess I'd created. Finally last weekend I got out a bought a whole load of lumber to make new shelving out of. I've gotten into the habit of buying 12" deep butcher board in 4 or 6 foot lengths. It looks quite nice, and the generous depth allows me to display most models. I flattened all the boxes and eventually managed to find a place to put them. I then set about stocking my new shelves with all the sets I've acquired over the past 8 months. While I'm not super happy with my current displays, at least I've gotten rid of all the clutter from around my room and house. Everything has been nicely consolidated once again.

While I've started thinking about how I can add more shelving to the few square inches of wall space that's still left in my room, I've long since come to accept that the only way I'll be able to keep buying more Lego is by disassembling and storing away large amounts of what I own and perhaps doing a rotation of sets to display. Once I get my own place to live in within a couple of year, perhaps I'll be fortunate to have a large room that I can dedicate to my hobby.

I apologize for the ramble, and I hope I've made at least a bit of sense. My excuse is that I'm tired.

I'll see about taking some pictures of my room this week and posting them. Great topic Brickster!

[AussieJimbo]

I have a fairly large collection (e.g. overflow parts go into 100 gallon containers, five separate storage rooms, etc.), so I had to go to a much more extreme solution. I bought a second house next door, so that I could have one house to live in and another for Lego. Hey, it works for me.

Thanks for convincing me I don't really have a Lego storage problem. :-)

I'm in a tidy up phase at the moment, also wanting a more presentable room back. I've flattened lots of boxes and prepared the ones I'm not flattening to go up into the "attic" (ie. roof space).

I won't be deLegofying the room entirely but at least making it look a bit less like a Lego warehouse.

:classic:

[CP5670]

I used to have problems with space at one point when all my Lego was crammed into my bedroom, but it's less of an issue now. I did learn to make efficient use of space back then and manage to keep it all fairly organized today. There are lots of built up sets displayed on garage shelves along the walls, along with a row of Stack-on containers on one wall containing my spare parts. I usually have pieces scattered on the floor in that area from current MOC projects, but clean them up periodicially.

I have my apartment to myself and the two bedrooms are big enough for all the Lego, especially since I keep little furniture around and have lots of open space. I try to confine the Lego to the bedrooms, as I can keep the blinds down in those rooms and block sunlight without making the whole place dark. I'll actually be moving in a few weeks and need to think about packing all the Lego soon, but the new apartment is a bit larger and I plan to use the same arrangement there.

I have generally cut down on buying Lego sets over the last few years in favor of Bricklink orders, although I do still buy one or two big ones per year. I have the space for more sets but not the time to build them (and still have a huge backlog of 100+ old MISB sets in storage ).

I toss them. I know that will upset some of you, but I just do not have the room to store everything. So I elected to dump the boxes.

I've kept all my boxes so far since most are the nicer ones from the 80s/90s era, but the modern boxes are not really worth keeping. So far, I have kept the new ones too for the sake of continuity, but going forward, I will probably at least flatten them or something.

[Artanis I]

I bought a second house next door, so that I could have one house to live in and another for Lego. Hey, it works for me.

Gives a new meaning to "Lego house"... (and not James May's version either!)

Unfortunately I do not have the benefit of permanent living arrangements. At present and for another 3 months I have a place with a separate room dedicated to Lego, full of shelves covered in sets. This room has the curtains drawn at all times to keep away the yellow, and the door shut to keep the dust levels down. This will all have to be dismantled for when I have to move. I don't mind so much for the sets (especially Space) but the MOCs that I won't be able to reassemble (in particular the bases) I will miss. I have (pretty much) all the Space sets from 1987-1997 + SP3 built, all the castles & larger fortresses from 1984-> (except KK "legends" castle, you know, the one whose release made no sense) + all of Kingdoms & quite a few other Castle sets mostly 1988-1995 sitting there on display. One part of the floor has the monorail all over it, another is stacked with boxes and the rest is either clean or covered in bags from recently opened sets or boxes & packaging from BL orders.

I ran out of room for Alien Conquest - that line is sitting on a table in the drums room. Other than that the Lego is only in the Lego room. I tend to open & build sets as soon as I can, (next day at the latest!!!) and then put them on a shelf to slowly get dusty over the next however long I can leave them built... On the next move I will probably keep the Space sets packed away, depending on the future of Kingdoms & my satisfaction with the completion of armies I will likely set Castle up if possible. I don't see SW going away so I'll keep the figures out at least.

I keep boxes... they're also useful for transporting sets without disassembling them in many cases.

Thanks for sharing, everyone!

[LEGO Guy Bri]

My Lego Lair, or "Room" if you will, hit critical mass in the latter part of 2010. 95% of the sets I bought either stayed MISB or the "used" ones were dismantled (if necessary), washed/restored, reassembled, and stuck in a storage bin destined for the attic. Occasionally, I would retire some displayed vehicles for newer (old) ones but, thats about it. I just had no more room. Fast forward to a month ago, I decided to finally pack up my city. Twas a sad day. I did not like the idea of my collection stored in the attic, as well as, me needing to move other stuff up there. That and I needed a portion of the closet for another project. I do plan to eventually move into a house where I can use an entire room. My available room has a right triangle walls that at there height reach 5ft. Being 6'3" it was getting old. So I spent two full days packing up 95% of my sets and brought down all the storage bins and unopened sets from the attic. Thank God it was a cool day! Now the room is full to the ceiling with boxes and bins but, ready to move at a moments notice with relative ease. Further more, I have no plans to stop buying Lego

My biggest problem is empty boxes. What was/is your solution? do you flatten boxes?

I keep my boxes unflattened in a corner of my attic. If you don''t have an attic and don't want to cut a hole in your ceiling (I did, completely worth it), I would suggest flattening them if you plan to keep them

Edited June 27, 2011 by Leg Godt Gud

[Jareth]

I didn't declutter so much as moved stuff around.

I had a lot of Boxes of clearance legos sitting around, and I finally decided to do two big projects with them (one sci-fi, one fantasy) so I opened the boxes and sorted by color. White Greys, red and Black in one pile, browns and tan in another and "other" in the third pile. I ended up with a heap of boxes, which I suppose I should have saved to hang on the wall....but oh well.

So, not that I've condensed the sets and worked on a big project, I lost all my table space, but the rest of my apartment looks a lot better.

[CP5670]

Unfortunately I do not have the benefit of permanent living arrangements. At present and for another 3 months I have a place with a separate room dedicated to Lego, full of shelves covered in sets. This room has the curtains drawn at all times to keep away the yellow, and the door shut to keep the dust levels down. This will all have to be dismantled for when I have to move. I don't mind so much for the sets (especially Space) but the MOCs that I won't be able to reassemble (in particular the bases) I will miss.

How far are you moving? I certainly wouldn't take apart any MOCs while moving. Even if you're going overseas, you can ship them if you pack them carefully.

I plan to keep everything assembled when I move, both the MOCs and official sets (except for monorail tracks and a few things like that). I will just bag each model separately and spread them around the car seats and floor. I think they should all fit in my minivan and one other car, although I have to use all the space available. I could have just given them to the moving company, but didn't want to spend a lot of time packing them in boxes or risk having the movers damage something.

[Artanis I]

How far are you moving? I certainly wouldn't take apart any MOCs while moving. Even if you're going overseas, you can ship them if you pack them carefully.

I plan to keep everything assembled when I move, both the MOCs and official sets (except for monorail tracks and a few things like that). I will just bag each model separately and spread them around the car seats and floor. I think they should all fit in my minivan and one other car, although I have to use all the space available. I could have just given them to the moving company, but didn't want to spend a lot of time packing them in boxes or risk having the movers damage something.

Not far hopefully, same city. Thing is, my MOCs are not so stable! Definitely not TLG standard. The vehicles and most of the ships should be fine, but the rest will get megamangled, particularly the castles... I used a drum hardware roadcase to transport them last time (castles are new since then), there were a lot of loose pieces on the bottom...

The other reason is because I don't know if I'll have room.

[AbbieDabbles]

I <3 this topic. Now that both my husband and I are LEGO hoarders, things get out of hand QUICKLY! Unfortunately my problem isn't limited to a "man cave" it is literally the whole house (minus our two bathrooms and our master bedroom (for now, and that does not include our closet--it is jam packed with LEGO). I lovingly refer to our house as being covered in "LEGO vomit". Oiy vey!

I dream of the day when we have saved enough money to add a garage. It will most definitely have a second floor where all the inventory can hide!

I am not brave enough to post pictures... maybe that mythical day when everything is organized...

[brickmack]

Funny. I started decluttering my LEGO room about 4 months ago. At this moment, I have about 10 boxes of parts on the floor, a partially sorted through box of parts in a corner, about 60 percent of the floor space that isn't taken up by the bed or shelving is covered in LEGO to varying depths, I have 3 sets of drawers filled with sorted parts, and the top part of each drawer set is lightly coated in random parts, bags of sorted pieces, half finished MOCs, and minifigs. The area under my bed has small amounts of parts underneath, as well as 4 of those big blue tubs that LEGO has for those "basic brick" type boxes. When I'm not sleeping on it, the entire surface of the bed is covered in parts and MOCs that I'm working on (I take the pillow and covers off most mornings and pile them up in a corner). I have a large worktable on the other side of the room (Which I can only get to by clearing out a path through the "sea" of parts on the floor) which, except for a small section reserved for various sciency instruments, is covered in small piles of parts and a few layouts (which I might eventually finish). My entire closet is filled with empty set boxes and a few PAB cups on a shelf. The cleanest area is my book shelf, the top half of which has various sets and MOCs on it also.

This is after 4 months of cleaning... (I would have finished it except every few days I get a new set or start on a new MOC and mess everything up, and all the stuff I got at Brickworld didn't help...). I might post pictures eventually...

[fred67]

Yeah... Hi, my name is Fred, and I'm a LEGO hoarder.

I do not part out most sets, so that's not an option. I have a number of bracket shelves in my bonus room that I share with my wife... we have our desks, a love seat and TV, and shelves with LEGO. The shelves are packed. I'd redo the whole thing with more shelves, but the way I want to do it would cost a lot of money that I could otherwise be spending on more LEGO.

I've recently boxed up a few sets (although, as I said, I don't part them out) and put them in my closet. I've gotten more storage containers for pieces, but that's another thread.

I display some sets at work... all my architecture and much of my Star Wars (where it's appreciated more than in my home!) are in my office, but not all of it. I've recently started a sales thread to get rid of some sets I'd never even opened, but were taking up closet space.

The bonus room has large closets... my wife and I each get one, mine is half packed with LEGO. In addition, I have a lot of boxed LEGO in my bedroom closet.

I have plans to un-clutter, some of which have come to fruition, but mostly they involve that last step of LEGO organization - moving to a larger house to have more room for LEGO.