How do you store your playmobils?

[Sophia]

I don't know how my older dc managed to get to 14, 12 and 9 with no playmobil's but my younger three have discovered them and we are beginning a small collection.
Do you keep them together in each box so pieces don't get mixed up?
So far they have been wonderfully careful with making sure each piece goes back into the right box, but I'm wondering if it would be easier to just let the pieces get mixed up in a basket.
Will we regret it if we toss the boxes and mix them all up?

[angela in ohio]

We only have sets for one theme (knights,) so it is easy to just put them in one bin. I think younger kiddos don't mind having things mixed together, but if your older dc might play with them, they might want them sorted. At least, that's how things usually work out here with my 5 yo and his older sisters.

[nestof3]

We are short on space, but have TONS of Playmobil thanks to relatives so kindly NOT buying junk from Toys R Us, but actually going on recommendations.

We store the large buildings and other large items from themes in large plastic storage tubs in the garage. All Western stuff is together, all knights in another, roman in another, etc.

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My mom also has a playroom at her house and has ALL of the modernish Playmbil at her house. She has more room -- a dedicated room, so they keep all of the buildings up.
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We have the other Playmobil stored like so:

1. We have a very large Sterlite type 3-drawer unit for miscellaneous Playmobil -- little boats, cannons, tents, etc.

2. On Thomas-like tables my husband made, we have shelves. These are the tables the boys play on. They each have a table. On the shelves are Rubbermaid large rectangular containers (the ones that are like plastic shoe boxes with lids but larger). Each on is labeled.

Our containers are as follows:

platforms
landscapes
trees
flowers
animals
people and accessories (we have two of these)
fences
dark gray rock
light gray rock
red rock

3. We then have a smaller three-drawer unit that holds 8.5x11 sized paper. This holds Playmobil catalogs in one drawer, Playmobil instruction sheets in another, and the tools and extra snapping pieces.

With their play area being in the family room and the first room you see when you enter the house, organization is a must. They're actually pretty good about putting items in the right container when they clean up.

Every now and then, we will take out one large set and assemble it. They will play with it for a couple of weeks, and then we will put it back in the garage. They still keep all of the containers with the labels, though.

They spend a lot of time setting up historical battles and scenes, so we like them to have all of the landscape, animals and people to use whenever they want to.

[Mamagistra]

:eek: Nestof3, I am ever-so jealous of your labeled-bins-that-actually-get-used!

http://easyfreesmileys.com/smileys/free-sad-smileys-726.gif (http://easyfreesmileys.com/) Our massive Playmobil collection is stowed mostly grab-bag style in unlabeled bins. But the dc do love it! I did get wise with the mansion and glued those teensy flowerbox flowers onto their teensy stems. ;)

[Sophia]

:eek: Nestof3, I am ever-so jealous of your labeled-bins-that-actually-get-used! ;)

No Kidding!

I was thinking of just getting some baskets from Kmart and dumping them in that:p

[momofkhm]

It's a big box, but one box. He mixes sets when he plays with them, so why would I want to go through the trouble of separating them from each other?

[Herding Cats in NC]

Ours is all mixed together in several large bins. The larger sets have been broken down, possibly never to be assembled again. But, in fairness, that was really a result of our last move when the packers just dumped toys into random boxes. :( I keep thinking that I should wade through it & put the sets back together, but the idea of looking for those tiny parts in a big bin...:eek:! On a brighter note, the kids still love to play with it all. They've always mixed things up - knights shopping at the grocery store, pirates in the castle - so they don't seem to mind the chaos at all.

[nestof3]

I knew a Mom once who would not let her son mix Legos together. Our eldest grew up on Legos. After he built the original set, he rarely built it again, but he built tons of things out of his own imagination listening to audio books all the while.

I see Playmobil in the same way. If we had some huge room, I'd keep it all inside -- organized still, but all inside. We just don't have room to keep all those big buildings inside, so I found a way that they can play with most of their Playmobil all the time.

My 8 year old is actually very much like me and loves the fact that the Playmobil is separated into different containers. He says it makes finding something much easier. He even proposed making one container for the people and another for their accessories, but that never did pan out. I think that is just too difficult. In our situation, the fences DO take up one of those Rubbermaid containers, the animals another and so on.

Their other toys are in Sterlite drawers which are labeled, as are their art supplies. I'm a fan of organization and labeling -- it's a disease LOL.

[momo4]

Ours are so little and have so many (many playmobil gift years) that right now we store some of the sets and most of the little things in ziplock bags in the garage, big cars and buildings go on the shelf, and the rest in a bin. Sounds like yours are doing a great job keeping track and just started collecting. So maybe individual bins for the different sets would be easier and faster clean up. For us the boxes didn't last very long.

LOVE the glue idea for the flowers.

[RoughCollie]

We have tons of Playmobil. At first, each set's parts went into big baggies and back into the box.

Then I tossed the boxes and kept the baggies.

Now everything is in several plastic boxes separated out by fences, animals, people, and miscellaneous.

The DC don't play with them any more. I am the one who loves Playmobil and I'm saving them for my eventual grandchildren. I like playing with them from time to time -- I love toys.

[WTMindy]

We had been collecting pieces over the years and this summer I found a woman who was selling TONS and TONS (including the huge castle and several big sets) for $200. You can't believe how much she sold for that price.http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b20/mindybuller/P1010464.jpg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b20/mindybuller/P1010463.jpg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b20/mindybuller/P1010465.jpg

[mcconnellboys]

Well, that might be easier, LOL! All ours are in big tubs. If you tried to keep them in the correct box, and maybe put the boxes into a big tub, perhaps it would help keep them sorted better, but also help to store them better.....

Regena

[Rhesa]

We have mostly knights/vikings with a few odd things scattered in. All the people, little pieces, horses I store in the largest tackle box I could find. Each person fits in a slot, the bigger dragons, horses, etc. in the bottom.

The castles we own (two:o) belong in their own storage containers along with the trees and stuff like that.