1) decide whether you'll be pure legos or allow customized pieces, lights or off brands (off brands good for support under but they warp and dont have clutch power
2) start with a lot of room to expand and good containers to get a handle on how u want to sort
3) get good shelving, dont forget the weight of the containers when full...also make sure stacked containers are secure If you have fake wood or cheap plastic, watch for warping over time you can end up crushing lower levels or wheels on i.e. sterilite towers leading to tipping and falling over
My tower above starting to lean! The leaning tower of piecesa
4) in retrospect, try to "bury the boxes with manuals or huge pieces that you wont use a lot as with limited space, retrieving most used pieces should be close on hand and easy to get i.e. buried bottom left in containers
5) I havent done it yet, but I hope to use lego
tape to put on bin drawers to quickly find pieces vs labels?
6) make sure you can dust and if u have special boxes, consider ziploc big bags to protect from water!!! I thought I was a genius putting my boxes up high (the first at at, my maersk train and then last box of legos my mom bought the last Christmas she was alive!) And wouldnt u know the pipe leaked down on them and ruined it...they were spickets on copper pipes and replaced with switch type valves. So when the pipe came off the washer upstairs came off and the whole load emptied the second time, I was ready!!! Although sterilite drawers kept the water where minifigs with stickers were ruined
.
Dust on my precious legos!!:(
7)if in a basement have a humidifier
8) consider barring pets. My one cat would leave me presents fortunately justin the floor whe. He was irritated ir anything would change in his routine or food...the day they use my legos as litter theyll be gone!!!
I love my tidy kitties but theyd better not confuse their tidy cats with my tidy legos!!:)
9) basement floors tend to drain and slope, so shims are helpful as shelves get loaded plastic shelves start to lean. My best purchase was a strong steel shelf that wont move warp or lean
10) make sure basement drain is free of obstruction and that a drainable porous cover is on in case small pieces get carried towards the black hole!
11) small compartment sorters are hard to get pieces out of when full....esp bead or tackle boxes with fixed square partitions. Trying to get fingers in to get 1x1s is impossible without sliding up the side one at a time and then it can fall over the partition into an unloaded full compartment of other pieces where it falls to the bottom. Stanley has bigger compartments where you can scoop hands in and the yellow sliding partitions can be taken up and out as u unload more compartments.
Vs
Try picking 1x1s out of here!!!
12) long under bed containers are great for stacking, but a pain to pull out and lift when full. They also dont fit on even big shelves at times. I bought 4 big ones with hinged lids but the hinges tend to bend when the lids warp if stacked with different containers that dont rest on the sides vs the lids. I tried bigger stackable containers but again the lid buckles when trying to lift up the hinged door
Going back to water damage prevention, watch out if there are spickets on plumbing over your storage
Replace with this
Or like me, one of my special boxes I kept will look like this
All warped!!!
Well hope this info helps..I've got more tips coming!
I 
