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  Course: Model Care & Share
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Sorting and Storing LEGO Bricks Organize your LEGO collection with these sorting and storage tips. Why would you want to sort your LEGO elements? Well, you probably know how much time it takes to look for the perfect element when designing a model. If you are able to easily locate the elements you need, you'll have that much more design time!  
Containerology
Real LEGO designers sort and store elements in containers. At the LEGO Company, elements are stored by type and color. At the LEGO factory (LEGO Club login required) you will find entire boxes of a single element style in a single color. It is an incredible site! The LEGO factory has lots of room, and of course millions of pieces, so this storage system works well for them. With limited space and a smaller supply of LEGO pieces, you are going to need to be a little more creative in finding a good storage solution for all your bricks and pieces. At the research and development branch of LEGO (called Futura), the pieces in each designer's area are kept in sorting trays. These grey trays contain 12 to 20 compartments and slide into cabinets that can hold from 7 to 14 trays. These cabinets can be stacked if needed. Since you don't have these trays, you are going to have to use something more common to sort your LEGO elements. Try using everyday resealable food storage containers that can stack relatively easily. Some resealable containers have recessed tops to prevent the containers from sliding around on top of each other when stacked together. This is a useful feature to stop you from accidentally knocking containers over and mixing all your elements together. The containers can then be stored in a shelving unit (such as steel shelving) or simply stacked in a corner depending on how much room you have. Another great storage idea is a fishing tackle box, which usually has many compartments for storing quantities of small elements. Sewing and craft boxes are similar and could also be used to store LEGO elements. Another idea is to use a small cabinet designed for holding electronic parts. These cabinets have approximately 1 1/2-inch wide X 7-inch deep X 1-inch high drawers -- perfect for storing LEGO elements. An inexpensive solution is to use zipper-lock plastic bags inside larger storage containers to keep your LEGO elements further organized. It might slow down your building speed if you have to dig into a container and then into a bag to locate a specific piece, but the trade-off is that you won't need to sift through a bunch of wrong pieces to find the right one.
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