It was bound to happen... now it's my turn to ask you guys a question! I already have looked through the "what does your collection look like" topic and EB's sorting and storage topic etc., but what I want to know is if any of you store your collection by piece. I'm torn between keeping my sets as sets or putting them into a part collection (for reference Brickset said my collection is about 30K pieces, but there are a bunch of sets I didn't add so it is probably at 50K). Usually I have no more than 10 sets out for display and I've been wanting to do more detailed MOCs so I've been looking into sorting them into parts, but I'm sort of scared it will be a lot harder to build sets if I do and parts might "disappear" into MOCs when I'm building a set (this is the main problem, I don't really mind sorting).

 

What do you guys do? Anything to help me decide? Thanks!

I am pretty anal about sets staying together. So I would most likely store them in some kind of storage bag individually. at the moment, all of mine are displayed though.

When gf and I moved in together we went nut for two years and bought mostly for collecting.  The bigger sets are displayed.  the smaller sets are zip locked with set info, then stored for rainy build days.  Those sets will probably be sold off at some point as they were cool for the moment but don't hold up as much as the larger sets.  If they do get sold off at least this way we know they are 100% and away from our horrible habits.  smokers

My collection is not that big yet.  5 sets are assembled and occupy 2 shelves in my curio cabinet (along with minifigures).  1 set is back in the box.  Several boxes are still sealed.  I also have a Stack-on 39-drawer storage bin full of parts from a bulk purchases.

 

I have them in various plastic tubs and plastic drawer units. My daughter likes the drawer units better as it's easier for her to get crap out.

When I get bored looking at a displayed set, I break it down and store it in the original box... Or I sell it. I couldn't imagine throwing parts from my Sopwith, winter cottage, etc into a mixed bin. I know if I wanted to rebuild one I'd be missing parts. But I also haven't tried my hand at mocs or freestyle building. Well I have, but really only when playing with my kids. We use their bulk for that.

Definitely store mine by the piece. I used to be a heavy MOCer way back when, but time has prevented me from doing such. Now I just invest and work on my Bricklink inventory, which is also stored by piece 

I think by set would be the most common thing. If you have many sets then it could be really hectic!

We store 99% that aren't together by set... My kids like to build them (every now and then I take them apart and put them away) and it would be pretty crazy to find some of those rarer pieces of the Ninjago sets we have in a giant tub of parts or even into seperated bags/drawers.

 

We bought a bunch of "extra" parts on bricklink for the random building... Some are bagged and separated for the adults and some are mixed into a couple bins for the kids.

All the sets are stored individually in plastic totes with the manuals all together in an expandable file. The only exceptions are a few sets that I found in bulk lots that I could care less about those - those I broke down and threw into the general population LEGO bin.

 

I then store all of the "MOC pieces" in sorted storage depending on their piece style / color.

I store sets on shelves and boxes for the smaller sets where box size isn't as convenient.

My older "vintage" sets from the 80's I either have built and displayed, or stored by set in ziplocks, which are then stored in a big rubbermaid bin.  I consider these collector's items and I don't use the pieces for moc'ing.

 

Two of my sets are on permanent display in a cabinet (10210 Imperial Flagship and 6285 Black Seas Barracuda).

 

My Star Wars ships are all on display in a cabinet and probably won't ever be disassembled.

 

My Star Wars playsets, LotR, Hobbit, and Castle/Kingdoms are all mixed together and sorted by color.  I usually build the set once, keep it on display for a bit, and then take it apart to add to the collection.  I'm getting more and more into moc'ing, and can't justify the cost of buying separate bricks just for it.  I'm pretty anal about organizing my bricks, and I don't allow the kids into my personal collection (they have plenty of Lego of their own), so I'm not concerned about losing parts if I ever want to build the original sets again.

All my sets stay together and are displayed on about 5 different areas in my "Lego cave" Three of those sections are Star Wars sets, then the other two are various sets from different themes, like City, Town, Exo-Force, etc. Then I have about 30k-50k pieces in bins sorted by color at the moment with two sets in the process of being built(I just have to find the pieces to these sets) My future goal is to sort all the piece I have that are not from sets, so it would be easier for me to find them.

I sort out everything I have built and then taken apart by color and piece types into Sterilite plastic stackable drawers. Currently I am trying to fine tune the sort process by getting bunches of the small drawers which will be used for more specific part types and certain minifigures. Since I keep all my instruction manuals it seems unnessary, ridiculously difficult, and waste of storage space, trying to keep sets together. If I wish to build anything later I can just easily find the parts from my sorted drawers.

Thanks for the responses guys. Currently I have four of these http://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/plano-stow-******-go/6000065758893 and four of these http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/6/Tools/ToolStorage/PartsStorage/PRDOVR~0581023P/Mastercraft+43-Drawer+Metal+Cabinet.jsp?locale=en for my 10-15K PAB parts and CMFs. I like the planos for vegetation and minifigs but the drawers are probably better for raw parts. You can take them out individually but they have a catch so you don't accidentally knock them out.

My collection is all over my room.  Some bins are in my closet, some sets are on display, and some pieces are neatly organized.  I'm a TFOL.

For those that do part out, what do you do with minifigures? Are they kept together or broken down into legs, heads, etc.?

I learnt the hard way about putting all pieces into one bucket.  Over 50 sets, never again!  Now each set that isn't on display that I still want to keep gets put into ziplock bags and stored in the original box in a special area of my Lego storage Tardis 

I have the loose pieces that I build with in four separate containers which have general descriptions of what they should contain, and my sets are spilt between shelves, and sitting assembed in other drawers.