Thank you for the ideas. Harrigran, I love the piece of furniture idea with a display area on top. It looks a bit like school furniture; is it from a retail outlet? It's finding the room for it though.
We have a big yellow Lego storage box which is useful, but the pieces all just get jumbled. I bought 2 workmen's tool boxes and glued a piece of Lego to each section indicating which pieces go where. Good idea in theory! I'm very attracted to whenim64's cutlery trays stacked inside a chest.
I don't know about a dustpan and brush, I've felt like just hoovering them all up at times! A bit drastic, so I'm going to try the chest with cutlery trays.
Many thanks for the ideas. 