Project Simplify: The Lego Dresser

Project Simplify is going on over at Simple Mom and if you know me you know I don't need much arm twisting to organize something.  This week is drawers and shelves so I tackled our newly founded lego dresser.

Last week after losing the battle on whether or not to let the husband's childhood lego collection into the house, I subsequently lost the battle on whether or not we should bunk the boys' beds.  I'll share some pics of the new arrangement as soon as I can get at least three quarters of the toys put away for long enough to take a decent photo....so maybe never.....If you've Face Timed with David recently you've already been blessed with the whole fifteen minute tour of their new space and received a detailed explanation of the whole bed-bunking process--if you haven't had the pleasure just call in the evening when Chris is home with his iphone and I'll be glad to set something up for you :)

Anyway.....the gain in floor space from bunking the beds meant that we could fit the boys' other dresser (that had been residing in our storage room since we moved in) back into their room--and (I hope) it is our perfect lego storage solution.....

You remember the before?

Well welcome to the after....

At first we just dumped the legos into the drawers and called it a day, but it was a lot of legos to dig through and they were ending up all over the place so we decided to sort them out by color--mostly because there is no way the boys would be able to put them back if we sorted them by type which was Chris' first preference.  If the boys are ever at the point where they want their legos sorted by type they can go ahead and take care of that themselves :)

I was going to make some cardboard dividers and duct tape them in, but Chris thought that that was really ghetto and sad so he used some extra plywood we fished out of the river on a recent river-fishing expedition and made real dividers for me instead.

Thanks to the giant ship and submarine sets I bought Chris in college, we have a ridiculously disproportionate number of grey to colored lego pieces........I'm not sure I would have given him those if I had known how they would come back to haunt me.....

The other drawer is for base plates and special pieces in an old silverware tray and then the top has instruction books.

So far it's been working well but I think we need to invest in one of these to use when the boys are building to help contain the mess and allow for easy transport from room to room, especially when Henry's napping and all of the lego pieces left in the room are being held hostage until he wakes.  I'm thinking the true blue one.

I guess I'm warming up to the legos....they are kind of fun to build with......

.....and I don't think I'm too shabby at building random lego things either :)


P.S. it's supposed to be a dog in case you're wondering.......

Yay for storing lego pieces off of the floor and check out the other before and afters!