Once Dylan decided to move on to the regular size Lego's, his brother Trevor became interested. And since mister "I can do whatever my brothers do" Cody was now utilizing his sweet quiet voice to scream at his brothers for not including him in the day's activities, he was now involved as well. The Lego phenomena exploded after Jen passed away. I found myself buying sets from time to time as a way to keep my mind off of lying on the floor in the fetal position crying because I missed her so damn much. It wasn't long before each boy would receive a new Lego set on an almost monthly basis from Jen's parents, Dave and Shila. I don't think anyone would blame us for fixating on something like Lego's as a way to sooth and fill a void left by the death of their mother, but it did get a bit out of hand.
Month after Month the kids table in the kitchen grew more and more unmanageable due to the pile of Lego's on top of it. I bought a four drawer plastic storage container that was about three feet tall and we filled it up with all of our Lego's. Soon I had to buy another one. The kitchen was being overrun by Lego's, regular size Lego's. The trade off from the Duplo to the regular size was you needed less storage, however the pieces are much smaller and easily forgotten on the floor. I have found myself screaming obscenities because of the pain felt after stepping on a Lego piece at least fifty times. It became almost a daily ritual in our house. And truth be told I have the most sensitive feet ever. I'm the kind of guy who wears tennis shoes around the inside of the house most of the day because the floor is to hard on them. I know, I should turn in my man card right now. I don't know why they are so sensitive but that is how it has always been, so Lego's in the kitchen that I step on when letting the dogs out one last time before bed really pisses me off.
After Missy and the girls moved in, the Lego's went from "that's cute" to "holy hell where are all these Lego's coming from?" I had enough of the disaster zone created by the Lego's, also known as our kitchen nook. After a week long discussion Missy and I both agreed we needed the Lego's in another room. The playroom was first choice but the boys room, the girls room, the garage even the storage shed were all viable options in our minds. We searched on-line and in catalogs for ideas or even purchasable systems that would help minimise the Lego issue. The boys had their own drawer in the Lego containers where they could store their project and the other kids were not allowed to touch it. It worked well except for when Cody was around. I found him multiple times raiding his brothers drawers for pieces only later to lie to them about taking it. That became a whole other issue resulting in early bed times, missed dinners and the utilization of "the wall of shame" for his items. Yet we liked the larger storagble spaces and we were trying hard to find something that would work.
One day Missy showed me an industrial grade tool separating system. They sell it on-line for a ridiculous amount of money. Sam's Club sells it for cheaper but it's still hundred of dollars and hundred of pounds. Funny enough we both agreed that this option was the best one to date that we had found. About a week later we decided to take the kids to Lowe's with us while we looked around to see if anything struck a cord with us on this venture. We came up with a system using small storage bins where I would build a shelving system to hold them. I'm not the worst with power tools but I'm no Bob Vila either. At this point we are loading our cart up with about 50 of these small plastic bins. Then we came to the end of the isle and saw our new found joy. We each glance at the item and then at the other person. The look was all we needed to know this was it. It was an eight pack of bright yellow Stanley Tools sorting bins. The bins hang on a plastic piece you screw into the wall. It was perfect.
We bought all the packs that they had which were five and we bought five large bins that matched the set. It took time to plan out the project. We needed the right space, the right size, the proper materials and equipment. I'm anal so I spent about four days drawing different configurations and ideas before we came up with what we wanted. In addition the amount of Lego's was astronomical which caused some alterations of our initial idea. At first we thought we would do a bin for each shape of each color. Yes you read that correctly. After putting that figure in our head we realized we would need about 950 different bins. That would most likely take up the space of the entire twelve foot wall almost floor to ceiling in the playroom. A bit overzealous.
We decided to settled on 117 small bins and 5 big bins with 4 additional bins from Ikea to hold the instruction manuals, odd pieces and mini figures. We were lucky enough to find the bins at Home Depot and we snatched them right up. The construction of the Lego unit took a few days while I had time in between pick up and drop off at school and all the other house hold duties. I worked hard at creating a pleasing piece of furniture in the house, even thought it was holding Lego's.
After the structure was built and in place the true fun began, sorting. I had no idea of the hell that I was in for when it came to sorting. First we sorted those eight drawers by color. We emptied them into other plastic bins that we had around the house. This process took about two weeks. There were hundreds of thousands of Lego pieces. The fun days where when I was sorting and the kids would ask to help. They found it fun to grab a few pieces from the drawer and then they would try to throw the Lego in the proper colored bin. My most favorite was when Cody took half of the blue Lego's out of the bucket we had sorted them into, built some contraption he called a spaceship and then dismantled it and shoved it back in a different drawer that had yet to be sorted. We found all kinds of things too; other toys, Missy's hair bands, money and even Evey's stuff. We weren't sure if Evey did it on her own or if Cody was hiding it from her. One day I had been sorting for about two hours when Lucy walked over to me after getting home from school and she said, "wow you're still sorting that same bin?" I had been on that bin for three days so far. I immediately stopped sorting and headed straight to the fridge to get a ice cold beer and sit outside in the backyard for some fresh air.
After the color sorting was done it was time to move on to shape and size. I started off easy by grabbing a color with only about sixty pieces and putting it in one small yellow bin, then putting it up on the wall. I knocked out about twenty of those the first night. I was thinking this is easy now, smooth sailing here on out. Well I was full of it and I should have know it. Imagine twenty pounds of white Lego's, they don't just fall into four or six small bins and align themselves in an orderly fashion. Truth be told the whites were the last color I did. It took me two days working about two hours each day on it. We ended up with eighteen small bins and one large bin of just white Lego's. All in all the sorting took about four weeks before it was completed. Missy helped with the sorting into colors and she sorted the blue Lego's for us. It was greatly appreciated. That is until I realized the way she sorted those eight bins of blue and the way I sorted the other one hundred and nine were different. So I resorted the blue and finished the project. It was such a task that we both agree the kids should never play with them ever again so that we don't have to sort them ever again. At least we got the kitchen back, the Lego's are out of our immediate line of sight and my feet are feeling much better. On some nights I still walk into the playroom and turn on the light just to marvel at the beauty of those organized Lego's.
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