How do you manage your lego collection?

[frikandeloorlog]

1. I keep my bricks in the original boxes

2. I dump everything in large bins

3. I keep every brick sorted and separated by piece.

4. Something else?

[JopieK]

It totally depends on the size of you collection. I generally choose the bricklink categories to store most items: I keep them in 20L / 30L curves boxes that are easily stackable and in that depending on the amount of certain parts put them in ZIP-lock bags. I also have smaller part storage boxes for certain elements.  

[jamie75]

4. Something else?

Built, on shelves, in my "play room".

Jamie

[Captain Green Hair]

I still have most of my MOCs in one piece on display. My bulk supply is sorted by colour and/or piece depending on the amount I have. For this I use about 100 small Ikea Samla bins and 8 of the plastic roller cabinets with large drawers. My minifigs are mostly on baseplates on a shelf, some are in the MOCs. 

 

[dr_spock]

I use PAB cups, bins, boxes, plastic bags, rolling cabinet draws. whatever and wherever things fit.  What worked when I had few pieces is not working too well with a larger collection. You'll find you may have to change methologies as your collection increases in size or at least get a bigger house.

I don't manage my LEGO collection.  My LEGO collection manages me. 

Day 366 of 365: Post 365 New Year by dr_spock_888, on Flickr

 

[grum64]

My unbuilt sets are in their boxes on racking, those I've built are on shelves and all loose parts are stored in five 50L, three 80L plastic boxes and fifteen 8062 Universal Set cases all of which are yet to be sorted out.

[frikandeloorlog]

1 hour ago, dr_spock said:

I use PAB cups, bins, boxes, plastic bags, rolling cabinet draws. whatever and wherever things fit.  What worked when I had few pieces is not working too well with a larger collection. You'll find you may have to change methologies as your collection increases in size or at least get a bigger house.

I don't manage my LEGO collection.  My LEGO collection manages me. 

Day 366 of 365: Post 365 New Year by dr_spock_888, on Flickr

 

Wow, thats a lot of Lego, how long have you been collecting?

[Japanbuilder]

I keep mine in plastic drawers either fully built or partially  built. Pieces not in use I have in a tool box with multiple compartments where the pieces are more or less arranged in ways I can get at them easily. 

I tend to rotate what I have on display every few months. But mostly I keep my city stuff out all year long and make temporary dioramas for my Star Wars stuff to occupy smaller spaces throughout the year. 

Frankly I am running out of room in my house for all the LEGO, I may  need to decide to cut down on my display space or split it up by theme and just display smaller bits of my collections on a rotational basis. 

[The Architect]

I try to keep things in order; 2x2 together, all in a ziplock bag or two, 2x4 together all in a ziplock bag or two, so on and so forth.

[r12ax7]

I have a hard time staying disciplined with keeping my parts in order so was looking for the easiest system to keep organized.  I ended up going with the simple tackle boxes with adjustable dividers like these: https://www.amazon.com/Plano-23600-01-Stowaway-Adjustable-Dividers/dp/B011ZXH43Q/ref=pd_lpo_200_bs_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&refRID=K2KRB0W9HWVAGQAV9B69

or these: https://www.amazon.com/Plano-2-3700-Stowaway-Adjustable-Dividers/dp/B011ZXH9FE

Perhaps best of all they are only around $2.00-$6.00 (USD) depending on size and if you want a water tight lid (obviously not usually a necessity for this purpose).  I started really just looking to organize Technic pins, axles, gears and connectors, but I quickly expanded to lift arms and now have pretty much my entire Technic collection under control.  I have now just started working on our System Bricks last week and so far I think the approach works just as well.  A big advantage of these boxes (particularly for Technic) is being able to know what you have in a given box at a glance.  If I just need some spare Technic pins/connectors its one box, if I just need some lift arms, its another.  Then the gears/axles/PF motors are in another box.  And these boxes come in various depths and sizes and with static or movable dividers depending on how you want to organize each box.  

The only downside is if I want quick access to parts that are spread among say 3-4 of the larger boxes at once, space for actually building can get a bit tight.  I should add that i favor sorting by part type/size/bricklink category and not color.  Also, my collection of spare parts is probably not as huge as many on here  - I'll put it this way, each of my bricklink orders seems to be bigger than the last, and they are getting more frequent, but I'm not quite ready to sign up to be a seller ... yet.  I don't know that this system would work as well for a big bricklink seller.