As you stare at the larger than expected task in front of you, you might get a little disheartened. I know it looks imposing. But, like they say, "Man, this is gonna suck".
No... Wait... They say "How do you eat an elephant sandwich? One bite at a time."
Yep. That's better.
Before we start, a disclaimer : this method worked for us but may not work out so great for you. There are as many ways to do this job as there are little plastic pieces you are trying to sort. That said, I hope you find something here that helps out a little.
Now, this is going to be a multi-day project (assuming you have other things more pressing in your life than performing this nearly pointless task) so you will need a work area that won't be disturbed while you answer the phone, use the restroom, Faceblog your Tweetselfies, or whatever. If that's not practical because you live in a 100 square foot apartment with your fourteen cats or something then use one-gallon Ziplock bags to store everything as the project grinds on.
Gather all the Legos and Lego-related paperwork you can find, leaving all the stuff your kid wants assembled intact. Just because you think the secret agent alien gun trap zombie factory he hasn’t touched in months is just a jumble of random blocks, it's his jumble of random blocks. Respect it. Feel free to remove all the things that are not Legos (Trashies, Squinky-Zinkies, Hot Wheels cars, etc.) and put them someplace else, though. Any questions about what stays and what goes? Ask your kids. They know.
Now count out the instruction manuals, minifig sheets, Ninjago cards and any other paperwork that you've kept (or can find). This will give you an idea of how many 3-ring binders and transparent binder sleeves you will need. Sort the paperwork as needed (some kits have more than one manual) and put one kit's-worth of documents into each sleeve. This is a good place to put (ugh...) Ninjago cards and minifig sheets, too. Don't make the binders so big little hands can't move them around. I found that three-inch binders will hold roughly 30 sets of manuals comfortably.
Pro Tip: Don’t put the binders on the shelf upside down. Not that this has ever resulted in accidentally dumping all the manuals and stuff into a sad little pile on the floor or anything. Not even once. Or three times… in a row…
Sort the black, grey, and white pieces into a pile. Typically, these will far outnumber any other colors in your kid's collection, so this is a good metric for how many and what size bins you will ultimately need.
Get yourself a small number of plastic, see-through containers. Don't overdo it and don't commit to a particular size just yet. Tupperware or similar works great - just make sure the lids (oh, yeah, you need lids to prevent the pic in the upper left from happening - thanks Mr. Kitty-Cat!) are tight but not too tight for little fingers. My son ended up Rip Taylor-ing hundreds of Lego studs all over the room when the lid of the container he was muscling open finally popped free. Not his fault - just a typical "dumb dad" mistake. I sanded the lids a bit so, now, no worries.
Now that you’ve “sorted” the black, white, and grey pieces, you might be thinking to yourself that the job would go quicker if the whole family helped. In fact, you twisted, misguided sociopath, you might even think that this would be some sort of bonding experience. Yeah... While that looks like an iffy-at-best idea on paper that’s super wrong. Think: are you the only one that wants to get this done? Do the number of people in your house who couldn't give a rat's behind if this Sissyphian chore ever gets accomplished outnumber you? Also, how much time will you actually be saving? There you are, constantly halting your Great Work having to stop people from ”misfiling" the pieces, having to answer questions about where certain things go, debating the answer to that question, stopping to sweep up shattered whiskey bottle fragments, answering the door and trying to explain to the cops that the neighbors must have heard the TV or something, begging CPS to return your child, etc, etc…
Oh, yeah... The bins... The bins should be transparent and be a maximum of a few inches deep. This makes rooting around a lot easier and you can lift the container up over your head to see the littler stuff hiding on the bottom, too.
The groupings I chose for this effort were based on the distribution of bricks. I didn't want too many in one bin, but having a bin for every shade (white, cream, glow-in-the-dark white, light grey, dark grey, black, silver...) would be an equally bad storage issue, at least for the order of magnitude of Legos my kid has. If, God please please forbid, the order of magnitude changes I might need to subdivide the main groups further. But, for now, here they are:
Regular Bricks
- Whites, greys, blacks, silvers
- Reds, browns, oranges, golds
- Greens, yellows
Each of these enormous piles were broken down by the number of bumps they had on their primary surface, NOT by size. This decision was key to getting the job done in a way that used enough bins to be useful but not so many as to require infinity minus one of them to do the job. It was an arbitrary decision but a useful one - questions about what went where simply vanished. The bins for these are 0-1 bumps, 2 bumps, 3 bumps, 4 bumps, 5-8 bumps, and 9+ bumps (see pic). All the "tiny" pieces were set aside, as were the "grid" pieces - more on that later. The "3 bump" bins are way underpopulated but since neither I nor my kid can't seem to NOT pick the same one up numerous times when looking for a 2 or 4 bump piece, the bin stays.
Note: there were not enough Legos in this category to justify subdividing the blues and purples further. Thank Jeebus.
Translucent pieces - Not car windshields or windows or doors though. At the boy’s request, things that were “cool glow-y” (neon) got a separate container.
Tiny Thingies - We call them “buttons”. These are where all the studs, little sloped pieces, and little flat pieces live. They are sorted by color like the bins are. At the boy's request the neon pieces and pastel pieces (marked ???) have their own homes. In case you are wondering why there are three whole cups of red translucent tiny things, uh, dad went a little crazy with the cheeze whiz filling the nooks and crannies of a cup at the Lego store once (they charged by volume, not weight), and now we have a bajillion of these. Hooray.
Car/vehicle parts - Wheels, bikes, hubs, tires, steering wheels, and control sticks.
Screens and Chairs - Can't ever seem to find these when they are needed so they get their own space.
Plant and Animal Parts - Sounds grizzly, I know, but it makes sense. Man, there are a lot of eyeball pieces. But, like the chairs, they can't be found when they are needed so they get their own space.
Machine Parts and Flat Parts - All machine-y looking bits like gears, props, and stuff like that go here. There were enough of these to justify two bins: one for black, grey, and white pieces, and another for red, orange, and brown. Also, the red machine bin has all the grid pieces of that color in it.
Special Stuff - Hey, man... there's just ain't no categorizing some stuff, you know? Light bricks, chains, ropes, boat hulls, spider webs, railroad tracks... They're all here.
Ladders, Walls, Gates - Also contains fences, stairs, and black, white, and grey grid pieces.
Doors and Windows - Doors and windows. Also railings.
Minifigs - Hey, as long as they have a head, a torso, legs, both arms, both hands, and a hat or hair chalk that up as a "w" and move on. It really doesn't matter if they are horribly mismatched - please trust me on this. A Minotaur head on Lex Luthor's body is fine. Also, don't worry about where the waitress's ice cream sundae is or whatever. We will deal with it in the next group.
Pro Tip: Weapons outnumber the minifigs by a shocking amount in my child's collection for some reason. Keeping the weapons in separate containers as described should thwart a violent, bloody uprising in the event the minifigs turn real and demand revenge for the countless decapitations, dismemberments, and other indignities they've had to endure while under your roof.
Minifig Stuff
- Ranged weapons and dynamite - yes, there is enough dynamite to warrant mentioning it. Yikes.
- Melee weapons (mainly swords) and light sabers
- Spears, ranged weapons, more swords, shields
- Food and small animals
- Police and spy stuff
- Tools
- Containers, science, magic
- Other hand held or minifig specific stuff
Here is the most important box of all:
To Be Sorted
It is where the child can cram all of the Legos after playtime is over. It is unsorted. It is meant to be that way. Unless you want to punish your kid or raise a serial killer or something then by all means force them to burn three-quarters of their playtime re-binning little plastic bits in the approved way. Your kid is not the one reading this. You are the one who wanted these sorted. You need this bin. When the random bin fills or when you are bored or if you feel like multitasking while Oprah is on or while ODU is totally getting their behinds handed to them by Middle Tennessee (Really?!?! An interception on the very first play?!?! Jeez...), grab a handful and get to it, I guess.
Labels were made and the pic on the left is the end result. We now have a manageable selection that is easy to get to, can be brought out as needed, and, most importantly, quickly and neatly put away when it isn’t.
For now…
Like I said, I know that everyone's situation will be unique, and this is not meant to be a catch-all. This one solution works for us and, if it doesn't completely work for you or your child(ren) then I hope you can at least use parts of this strategy as a guideline.
I wish you the best of luck!
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