Our evolving Lego storage system

I've been battling with how to store our Lego for a long time. I've even blogged about it before, when I thought that I'd come up with our ultimate Lego storage solution! Since I wrote that post, quite a lot more Lego has come into the house. We have sets, mainly from the Lego City range, and a large box of bricks and other useful Lego pieces.

I came very close to buying one large box and throwing it all in together, after I saw this solution at a friend's house and noticed how creatively Harry played with all the pieces. So when we bought them a new large box of Lego I began mixing it all together, only to find that Harry was becoming frustrated because he wanted to follow the instructions to build things and couldn't find the pieces that he needed. I realised that the way he currently plays with Lego means that he needs to be able to locate the bits that he needs, as well as using the extra pieces to build his own designs from scratch.

So we've decided to keep all his actual sets separate. They are stored in individual boxes safely on his bookshelf along with the instructions, so that when he wants to build a particular model he knows that he has everything he needs. He can get out a large tray and lay out all the pieces, then easily build the set. I found a photograph on-line of each, and then made a laminated label for the front of each box.

Then we have a large box for plain flat and brick pieces, then a second large box for slanted pieces and 'interesting' pieces. I've also separated out a box of the things that are used to make vehicles, like wheels and windscreens, as we have a lot of those. I'm probably also going to attempt some further sorting of pieces, especially for the really tiny bits that are easy to lose.

How do you store your Lego? I'm always looking for new ideas!