The Best Way to Display Lego Builds - Jacob’s Lego Museum and Updated Bedroom

Jacob is obsessed with all things Lego – they’ve been his favorite thing since he was tiny.  Every year for his birthday and Christmas he asks for various Lego sets, and any time he has money to spend, he wants to spend it on – you guessed it! – Legos. 

As you can probably imagine, he has quite the collection… he has been collecting them for around eight years, after all.  And once he puts the sets together, he likes to leave them on display, so in recent years, Lego storage has become a huge problem.

This summer, we made it a priority to create the perfect space for him to display his creations, and the result is perfection.  He now has his very own not-so-little Lego museum!

Prior to this update, every single surface in his room was covered in Legos – the dresser, the bookshelf, the nightstand, the floor – and he had no space for anything else.  Honestly, you could hardly walk in there. 

It was so bad, y'all!

Products Used

To create this space, we purchased an Ikea Billy Bookcase system that perfectly fit in the space. 

I’ve had the Ikea Billy Bookcases in my home office for years, and they are the absolute best bookcases of all time, second only to built-ins, of course.  A few reasons why we love them…

 

1. They’re easy to assemble… and quick, too!  I was able to assemble each bookcase by myself in just 15 minutes. 
2. They’re all perfectly made and perfectly symmetrical.  (We’ve had bookcases from Walmart and Target in the past that were warped/weren’t perfectly squared and, therefore, they didn’t stand perfectly next to each other.
3. They are SO STURDY.  I’ve had the ones in my office for seven years, and despite having some very heavy stuff stacked on some of the shelves, none of the shelves are bowing or sagging.
4. There are tons of options so you can customize your overall unit exactly to your needs.  There are standard bookcases, narrow bookcases, bookcases with doors, extensions that you can add to the tops of each to make them reach the ceiling, and so many other options.  They also sell shelves individually so you can purchase as many as you need.
5. There are holes spaced one-inch apart along the entire height of the shelves, so you can space your shelves as close together or as far apart as you need.
6. They are SO affordable.  Seriously, they could probably double the prices and it would still be reasonable.
7. Ikea offers a huge variety of storage bins that pair perfectly with the Ikea Billy bookcases, so you can customize the system even more.

 

Since we didn’t want to spend money on built-ins, it was a no-brainer to go with the Ikea Billy system. 

To figure out which pieces we needed, I measured Jacob’s walls and worked out how to move his furniture around to create a space for the bookcases.  We wanted a large system to ensure we had enough space to display everything. 

Ultimately, we decided to get rid of his old bookcase and his old nightstand.  We were able to sell the bookcase which provided some money to put toward the cost of the new bookcase system, and we were able to move the nightstand to our front sitting room… we’ve been needing a side table in our front sitting room for years, so it was perfect!  By moving those two items out of his room, we were able to move his dresser next to his bed, and the dresser now doubles as his nightstand.  This actually turned out to be awesome because his dresser is tall enough for the bed… the nightstand was too low.

By moving those three pieces, this left a space that was 80-inches wide on the wall across from his bed.

Two standard Billy Bookcases + one narrow Billy Bookcase is 78.75 inches wide, and that couldn’t have been more perfect!  We also wanted to add height extensions to each unit to maximize vertical space, and we also wanted a few additional shelves for additional surface space.

Ikea Article Number 890.178.27 offered every single item that we needed to create this system in one package (two standard bookcases, one narrow bookcase, and height extensions for all), so with the click of one button, the entire shelving system was ordered. 

 

We opted to use their “Click and Collect” service, which meant that we purchased and paid for everything online, and then they gathered all of the pieces and loaded them into our car for us when we arrived.  Gone are the days of having to walk around the Ikea warehouse to grab all of the pieces yourself!  And thank goodness for that because these pieces were huge and HEAVY.  The Click and Collect service is free with a minimum purchase, by the way.

While at the store, we also browsed for a bit to find some bins to go along the bottoms of his shelves, and we opted to grab five of the Kuggis storage boxes with lids (Ikea Article Number 404.768.21) as they’re made to fit perfectly on the Billy Bookcase shelves.  They come in several different colors, and we grabbed them in turquoise per Jacob’s request. 

 

We spent the next week getting everything put together, adding the height extensions and securing them to the wall for safety, and building the museum of Jacob’s dreams!! 

The result is literal perfection, and he (and I!!) could not be more excited about this functional, organized, beautiful space! 

Building the Museum

On the shelves, we knew we wanted to create a space for all of his Lego creations, as well as his Lego manuals, his books, and various other trinkets that he wanted to display (baseball game balls, trophies, awards, keepsakes, etc.), so we came up with this basic plan:

- Bins on the bottom shelves

- Books in the middle right above the bins

- Non-Lego trinkets on the top shelves

- Lego creations everywhere else

Deciding where to put everything was very tricky as we wanted to arrange Lego sets by theme (to keep like items together) and height (to save vertical space), plus we had other items that needed to be kept together (books, trinkets), and we wanted it to all look good, too.  That took a lot of thought, planning, arranging, and rearranging, but we did it!! 

Since we wanted to maximize the vertical space, we decided to organize from the bottom, up, as that gave us the opportunity to place shelves just above items on the shelves below so as to not waste space.  We also took care to place Lego sets of similar heights on the same rows of shelves to keep things symmetrical. 

We placed the bins on the bottom shelves as Jacob needs access to those frequently.  They also look best there because they appear to anchor the bookcases to the ground.  The left two bins hold all of Jacob’s large Lego instruction manuals, the middle bin holds all of his school yearbooks (placed thoughtfully under his regular books), and the right two bins hold his small and medium instruction manuals.  Each of the bins is only about half – three-quarters full so he still has plenty of room to add more.

For the middle bookcase, the two rows above the bins hold all of his books, and the remaining shelves from bottom to top hold his Voltron Lego set, some unique vehicles that he wanted to stand out, and all of his Lego Brickheadz characters.

For the left and right bookcases, the two rows above the bins hold large builds of similar heights.

The next two rows up hold Minecraft and Lego City sets of similar heights.

The next row up holds Star Wars vehicles of similar heights.

The next two rows up hold more Lego City and various miscellaneous sets of similar heights. 

Then the top shelf holds all of his trinkets that he wanted to display – a few items he made from old books, his piggy bank, some baseball game balls and trophies, etc.  And you’ll also see that they each hold one Lego build on the inside corners – his skyline of Tokyo and his skyline of London. 

Bookshelf and Lego perfection!

There were a couple of sets that were too deep to fit on the Ikea shelves, so those now sit on his dresser along with a couple of other sets that didn’t fit on the bookcases, but the dresser doesn’t look cluttered at all like it did before.

I had hoped to get rid of the four-drawer plastic container that he had prior to this, but we did end up needing it.  It now holds extra pieces, builds that he took apart and has stored in plastic bags, and his Lego activity books that are too awkward to store on the bookshelf since they contain Lego pieces. 

 

Whew!  Are you still with me?! 

In addition to the Lego museum, we also changed out a few things on the walls to make the room more fit for our tween…

He wanted to keep the ledges over the dresser with mostly the same items displayed, but we did get rid of a couple of pieces, and we also added a couple of pieces that we already had on hand that had been sitting on his old bookshelf. 

He also requested to get rid of the JACOB sign over his bed, but he wanted to keep the stars, so we left them in place and moved the arrow marquee where the JACOB sign was.

He also requested to remove the little kid pictures of himself in the three white frames over his bed, so we pulled those out and he replaced them with some of his artwork instead. 

We also took down his old small bulletin board along with the rack that held writing utensils, and we replaced it with a large bulletin board so he can display anything and everything his heart desires.   

And finally, we moved the lightning bolt (that used to be over his nightstand) next to his bookshelves. 

 

Now his bedroom is more organized, it feels more spacious, it’s waaaay less cluttered, and YOU CAN ACTUALLY SEE THE FLOOR!!!!  And most importantly, since we implemented this system back in June, it has stayed organized and tidy!!!!  Success!

Happy Monday, y’all!