Hi, James, and welcome to the hobby!
First of all, I assme you’re living in your parents house. I grew up in a 1950’s-era house with a finished basement. A dehumidifier and electric heater were still necessary to keep the basement environment satisfactory for a layout.
When I went away to college, my parents sent my train stuff to some cousins for a while, and promptly moved into a house that was built in 1720. Whle it was a beautiful house, it was completely unsuited to model railroading. The basement was interesting: the floor was hand-laid concrete (in other words, mixed in a wheelbarrow in small batches and poured and smoothed by hand) over aggregate, the walls were fieldstone, it was only about 7’ high, and it had all kinds of water issues. While the house had been rewired in the 1960’s, it still had fuses instead of circuit breakers, and was not blessed with the number of outlets we need for all our modern gadgets. Those outlets that were their all had multiple plug adapters and were probably overloaded.
Long story short, I had to wait until I had a house of my own (after college, grad school, and a stint in the Navy) before I got my stuff back and got back into the hobby. If your parents are willing to be accommodating and finish the basement, great, but I wouldn’t force the issue. Perhaps a shelf layout around the walls of your bedroom would be more suited to your current situation.
