I'm running out of space

[Si-MOCs]

I ended up buying the house next to mine so I have a Lego-free place to live out of. Had a heck of a time explaining to the bank why I needed two houses next to each other without resorting to revealing my Lego addiction.

So do you throw out all the LEGO boxes from the LEGO House's garbage? so not to raise neighbor's suspicion?

Also! do you have a little tunnel between houses (made out of lego? )?

(why does this feel like it's going to turn into a 'Ask Madoka questions' thread?

[The Blue Brick]

I ended up buying the house next to mine so I have a Lego-free place to live out of. Had a heck of a time explaining to the bank why I needed two houses next to each other without resorting to revealing my Lego addiction.

I wish i had my own house just for lego im lucky with just my room

[airsoftg36c]

I ended up buying the house next to mine so I have a Lego-free place to live out of. Had a heck of a time explaining to the bank why I needed two houses next to each other without resorting to revealing my Lego addiction.

I loled. Hard.

@Pennas

Ever heard of that show "Hoarders"?

[ziljin]

I ended up buying the house next to mine so I have a Lego-free place to live out of. Had a heck of a time explaining to the bank why I needed two houses next to each other without resorting to revealing my Lego addiction.

OMG. Buy out the entire neighborhood! Have each house dedicated to a specific theme. Although might be difficult to prevent people from stealing all your lego.

You are my role model! Too bad I will not be able to afford that much lego in my lifetime. You are totally living my dream though.

All of my lego are in boxes and its crowding around my computer desk. Here is a

of my lego and other stuff. I find that if you dismantle your sets, they take up significantly less space. I am going to focus on army building. I hope to make a massive diorama one day using most of my bricks.

And yea lego for me is definitely an addiction. I spent over 1000 on lego the past two months. And want to spend another 200-500 next month. and at the very least spend 200 a month every month on building up my armies. I should be buying something else like a new computer since mine is 5 years old now. But that's like 1000 dollars before tax or around 200-300 soldiers for my armies!

Edited July 29, 2011 by lego40k

[madoka]

If I ever get to that stage I'll be really, really, really happy.

LOL! I didn't mean for what I wrote to sound cool. I meant it as a warning! As in, "don't let this happen to you!" A few years of collecting at that pace and you'll experience what happened to me. Your house will be so full of Lego that you can't invite anyone over. Then you realize that you don't want anybody to see how far you've let yourself go, so you won't get even help for home repairs. It's like living a bad episode of Hoarders.

So, how is it to be your own neighbour? Do you get newspapers two times?

And that's all I wanted to ask.

Strangely enough I like the fact that I only have to pay for garbage pickup from one house. That saves me about $30 per month. Otherwise, I have to pay double the electricity, gas, water, HOA fees, cable, internet, and phone :(

[ziljin]

LOL! I didn't mean for what I wrote to sound cool. I meant it as a warning! As in, "don't let this happen to you!" A few years of collecting at that pace and you'll experience what happened to me. Your house will be so full of Lego that you can't invite anyone over. Then you realize that you don't want anybody to see how far you've let yourself go, so you won't get even help for home repairs. It's like living a bad episode of Hoarders.

Strangely enough I like the fact that I only have to pay for garbage pickup from one house. That saves me about $30 per month. Otherwise, I have to pay double the electricity, gas, water, HOA fees, cable, internet, and phone :(

if one house is nothing but lego, why would it have any bills besides property taxes and electricity so you can see your lego?

I am following in your footsteps, even if its going to bankrupt me. I started armybuilding seriously about last month. Going to be getting dozens of minfigiures monthly I hope. If my income increases, going to buy even more minifigures!

Edited July 29, 2011 by lego40k

[Bearded Castle Guy]

if one house is nothing but lego, why would it have any bills besides property taxes and electricity so you can see your lego?

I am following in your footsteps, even if its going to bankrupt me. I started armybuilding seriously about last month. Going to be getting dozens of minfigiures monthly I hope. If my income increases, going to buy even more minifigures!

Many cities REQUIRE certain services(utilities) in order for a house to be occupied (used). I'm kinda surprised that he gets to skip the garbage collection on the second house, around here that's one of the bigger sticking points (the water bill usually covers sewer service as well, and you NEED to heat a house in many areas for at least part of the year or it'll deteriorate).

I'd advise being more moderate and staying fiscally afloat (or you'll not be able to KEEP your amassed collection).

[Pennas2000]

@Pennas

Ever heard of that show "Hoarders"?

Hoaders? Yep, that's me alright but I dont have rubbish and cats everywhere.

[streifen]

as have been mentioned so far, u just need to focus and narrow down to what you really like. as much as you like LEGO, surely there must be some sets/themes you like more. zoom in on those. if not, ur problem could get "worse"...

as for the rest, store them away in a store or sell them.

by the way, are you staying alone? or with your family? if with family, do they complain? or they also collect LEGO?

[Pennas2000]

as have been mentioned so far, u just need to focus and narrow down to what you really like. as much as you like LEGO, surely there must be some sets/themes you like more. zoom in on those. if not, ur problem could get "worse"...

as for the rest, store them away in a store or sell them.

by the way, are you staying alone? or with your family? if with family, do they complain? or they also collect LEGO?

my girlfriend also loves lego. which explains the huge numbers. She loves the city themes while i prefer the licensed themes.

[fff]

I've only been collecting Lego since 2009 and I've accumulated 1765 sets and I've got them all in bags which I store them in plastic tubs/containers. And I've officially ran out of room. I've contemplated storage but dont want to part with them. What the hell do I do? I could give up but I love collecting Lego so much and next year looks even better than this year.

Too many sets I think, not much time to enjoy them all... do you?

[Cookie0879]

I ended up buying the house next to mine so I have a Lego-free place to live out of. Had a heck of a time explaining to the bank why I needed two houses next to each other without resorting to revealing my Lego addiction.

Do you have any pictures perhaps? I just got back from the dark years and don't have that many sets, but I just simply cannot grasp what it would like to be in your situation. I guess this would go a lot of us. No offence of course, just really really curious

[Jargo]

Sell the houses, buy a warehouse or a big barn conversion. Live downstairs and keep the Lego upstairs. Then you could have it all.

[Jareth]

Silly Solution: Build bookcases and storage cabinets for your lego OUT of lego.

Serious Solution: Keep the unique lego parts from each set and enough basic parts (Bricks, Plates, tiles & slope bricks) to help you build the sets, just not at the same time. I hope that makes sense.

However given the number of sets you have, I have the feeling that you like multiples of the same set. So do I. It might be time to stop buying lego and invest in a larger place to live. If you can afford that much lego, you can afford a larger place.

[Legoman]

1700 in 2 years?

Are 1500 of them impulse sets? I really don't see what the point is. Sure, You've prooved to yourself you can do it, well done. But I'd personally either break them all (well, exept your favorites that you'd like to display) down into parts for MOCing (saves room and actually gives them a use..)

And If your not a MOCer at all, why the heck do you need 1700 sets!? Why don't you sell some? Surely nobody can display that many (WITHOUT buying the housenext door... )

That said, whats the average price of those sets? becuase it really could be anywhere from $2-$200

I think it might be safer for you to start collecting Gold - it takes up less room, and is a better investment

Whatever you decicide to do, thats a decent effort

Edited July 29, 2011 by Legoman

[ziljin]

1700 in 2 years?

I spent like 1700 within the past year! Probably at least 2k this year. On more minfigirues!

[Bearded Castle Guy]

I think it might be safer for you to start collecting Gold - it takes up less room, and is a better investment

Usually the value of an ounce of gold has been enough to buy a good suit, thus it's a good stability hedge but you're not likely to see much actual appreciation....

@pennas2000, it does really sound like you just need to focus your collecting, you might decide to cull thru your current collection and sell some and/or just be a bit more specific as to what you purchase going forward (or you can buy the place next to yours...) :)

[Hoboman]

I spent like 1700 within the past year! Probably at least 2k this year. On more minfigirues!

Lego40k, it is not $1700 in two years, it is 1700+ *sets* in two years. Slightly more money I would bet.

[AndyC]

I've bought a little over 200 sets since getting back from my dark ages about three years ago. Most people would think I'm crazy and I find that it takes up an enormous amount of space. I can't even begin to imagine how you could manage 1700+ sets in two years or find the time to appreciate them when you do get them, unless they're a bunch of tiny sets I guess.

Edited July 30, 2011 by AndyC

[ziljin]

Lego40k, it is not $1700 in two years, it is 1700+ *sets* in two years. Slightly more money I would bet.

oh oops. I misread that guy's post. hm number of sets. I probably bought only like 100 of them in the past 2 years. With most of them being multiples of ninja ambush, escape from dragon's prison, knights showdown, and prison carriage rescue, desert attack.

well just dropped another 190 bucks on crown knights and trolls.

[22kane]

Do you have any pictures perhaps? I just got back from the dark years and don't have that many sets, but I just simply cannot grasp what it would like to be in your situation. I guess this would go a lot of us. No offence of course, just really really curious

I completely agree. I would love to see pictures as I can't grasp what that would look like!

[youtoo]

Penas2000, this post NEEDS pictures ;)

[WastedGrunt36]

You should open all those sets and start building them. Then, when you take them apart, you'll have more space since the pieces won't be in separate boxes, but on top of each other in drawers.

[brickmack]

Well if you can get that much LEGO, you can probably afford a bigger place/spare house. But if you can't/don't want to for some reason:

1. Choose some (Hopefully less than a hundred) that you REALLY like and display them (I find I like the big sets like the modular buildings and such for this purpose in particular) and break down the rest of them. The parts take up less space when unassembled.

2. Sort the parts. It's going to take a lot of space and money to sort this much stuff, but it's better than looking through a bucket with 100000 parts looking for 1 2x2 red plate

3. Sell any sets/parts you don't want. Depending on the amount of such sets/parts you have, this could be helpful for buying sorting stuff and such.

4. If you're still keeping the boxes, you might want to get rid of them. Same thing with baggies and (unless you want to be able to sell them) instructions. This will free up A LOT of space when over 1000 sets are involved.

This might help clean up enough of the stuff at least so there aren't parts overflowing out of your floor windows (If you have a 2 floors).

[Vindicare]

brickmack...did you suggest he get rid of the manuals? Why would he do that?

What I do for storage is put them in ziplocs and then put them in those big plastic bins, then just stack them one on another. Although you'll need a lot of bins depending on the size of your sets, of course. Another idea I've been playing around with is getting file cabinets and store sets in there. They're fairly deep and long, so they'd hold pretty well. Again, you'd probably need a lot.

Let's see some pics!(echos the majority)