The Most Amazing LEGO Desk Ever

Due to high interest, we now have desks (a much better, updated version) available for purchase. 

Click here! 

Let me start by saying that my son is a LEGO freak.  He has more LEGO sets than most kids (or adults) I know.  We've been struggling with a way to organize his collections for several years.  It started with just some plastic bins, then to this Sterilite 3-Drawer Cart.  That was great for a while, but whenever he'd build things, we'd call him the "LEGO monster" because all we'd hear are these huge scraping sounds in those loud plastic drawers.  It. Was. Insane.  

It also got to the point where he didn't really have anywhere to build and his "LEGO cave" was just a huge mess and LEGOs would always make it out of his cave and all over the entire playroom.  The picture below is pretty clean compared to what it looked like 99% of the time.

My husband is a pretty amazing handy man & builder, so I asked him if we could build him a desk or some kind of organization system, because, honestly, his LEGO collection isn't getting any smaller.

I searched Pinterest, the Google and all over the internets for a good, relatively simple organization system, sorting system, or desk.  I found this super cool desk on Pinterest, so I showed my husband and he agreed.

So, it gets closer to Christmas and I'm asking him what the status is on the plans for the desk, he said that he was having a hard time coming up with plans.  Um.  Hello?  I sent you the link...  Anyways, long story short, the next day he spent drawing up plans in SketchUp.  It ended up looking nothing like the original desk I showed him, but it turned out AMAZING!!!

My husband said he'll paint/finish it when the weather warms up.  I'd love to keep it the original wood color, maybe just a varnish on it.

We used the plastic shoe box sized bins from Dollar Tree, the other side of the desk looks exactly the same as this side.  There are 16 bins total.  My husband wanted to make sure he had to walk around the desk when he's building. :)

 We re-organized these labels a bit to make a little more sense.  The holes drop down into their respective bins, so it makes clean up super easy, just swipe them into their spot.

I'm planning on using some regular Avery address labels to make more permanent labels for both the holes and the bins.  Just need to make sure these placements are what he wants.

I think it's pretty amazing, and my son LOVES his new desk.  It's great because he can easily find pieces he needs and I don't have to hear (as much of) the "LEGO monster" as we were hearing before.  He also has a nice big area to build on, so the LEGOs aren't all over the floor now.

It took us a while to decide how to organize and sort his LEGO collection.  I searched a ton of websites as to the best way to organize and sort.  Eventually, he just came up with his own system.  We decided to sort and organize by function/size instead of by color.  I think eventually, sorting by function and then color would be ideal.  For now, this system is working great for him.

It took forever for us me to sort and organize his LEGOs, but it was totally worth it.  I even got a wild hair and organized his instruction booklets into sheet protectors and a very large 3-ring binder.  He pretty much never uses the original instruction booklets anymore, but it'll be nice to have just in case.