I have finished building my bench work and have decided to paint it. The original plan was to paint the legs and supports black, then stain the 1x4’s a cherry color. I’ve decided to skip the stain and paint the whole thing. I am torn between having the bench work match the style of furniture in the room, or be painted to compliment the scenery. My layout has to share a room with our home office.
For those of you that have finished their bench work or fascia, what color did you use?
I did mine in some green that I had laying around that we painted one of the rooms in my inlaws house
This debate is raging at the not so local club. The fashia was painted evergreen green about a millenia ago to blend the scenery. But now the question has gone up to black, which does not draw the eye way from the scenery. Some people show their woodworking prowess and stain their fashia, of which you won;t see in the pictures. (And now I just noticed you woere gonna too). I’ve also seen it painted for a RR scheme on Google. But this tends to distract from the trains. If there are visitors, I suggest either the black or green, in that order. If your taking pictures, the fashia wouldn;t be in the shots, and wouldn’t matter the color. Don;t worry about the support legs, those usually aren’t so visible. And you don;t want people going
“Nice table leg! What kind of layout was this again?”
The last time I did this I went to Home Despot and bought myself a gallon of yuck!
Thanks for the quick replies. I was about to paint the whole thing black, then thought it may be distracting. I didn’t know if anyone painted their bench work the same color as their scenery base. Maybe I should try a reddish, dark brown paint. It wouldn’t be as severe as jet black. I’m probably over thinking this.
Hi Corey: I painted mine a dark green semi-gloss that is a close match for WS dark green foliage. 
Corey,
Shadowbox with black paint for me.
Guy
Mine is a tan that closely matches the earth color in the area modeled:
So…it doesn’t really matter, does it?[:D] They all look nice! I suppose I can always add another fascia to dress it up if I need to. Green and tan blend in to the scenery nicely. Black has a clean, contemporary look. Thanks again!
My benchwork will remain unpainted since it is completely hidden from view due to the fascia, which will most likely be painted either dark green, dark brown or (unlikely) black. I do actually have one section of the lower deck that crosses the doorway on a drop-down bridge–this area will be painted all black so it does not detract from the adjacent scenicked areas.
One nifty thing you can do is take pictures of your layout with the unpainted fascia and import them into some photo editing software. Then you can draw colored rectangles or other appropritae shpes over the fascia to simulate what it would look like using different colors. You can see this technique demonstrated on the following website for Charlie Burns’ excellent n-scale SP Cosat Line layout:
http://www.schrempp.us/bob/Trains/Charlies-N-Scale-Layout/Fascia_Color/fascia_color.htm
Jamie
No doubt you’ve read the other coments here. They all contain good advice. However, I intend to use the area under my layout for storage since the benchwork I am using while allow to put a shelf uder each section that can hold books, magazines or ever some drawers. I don’t want what stored underneath to be visible to either visitors or my surious grandchildren so Plan to cover that area with a curtain or some kind. I haven’t decided what color to make the curtain but the N-Track club I belong to has painted the fascia of it’s modules black and there is a matching curtain held on by velcro. That may be the way to go if this is what you decide to do.
Irv
I’m painting my fascia to match the woodwork. The layout runs around the walls of the downstairs guest bedroom, and the fascia blends into the room and makes the room look larger. The walls are painted ivory white, and the woodwork and fascia are a very light grey, so light as to be almost white. Right now the “backdrop” is merely the ivory white walls. I might paint a sky blue with clouds back drop on the walls, but that is still in the planning stage. It would enhance the layout, but I wonder about the overall effect upon the room of a two foot wide horizontal blue stripe running clean around the room.
The facia on the layout here is a semi gloss light grey. A neutral colour will keep the focus on the scenery.
I took the advice of my artist wife and used a neutral color. Specifically, Lowes signature eggshell SR313 Warm Sand. It is a little bit darker than the photo shows.
I am quite satisfied with this choice.
Peter Smith, Memphis
The paint I use on my fascia board is an interior latex paint named bedrock. It is a dark blue/grey color and was found in the paint section at Lowe’s HI. Here is the color on one section of the layout.
My initial thought was to leave my tempered Masonite fascia unpainted. Now I’m leaning toward flat black (with a black curtain below to hide the junk collection.) This will be matched by a black-fronted lighting valance.
When operating, all lighting will come from inside the valance - easily arranged in a windowless garage. The general room lighting is available for use during construction or when the under-layout storage is being accessed.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Part of my fascia board is painted concrete color and weathered up as LA River tributary. The rest of the fascia is painted earth brown so I can paint cross section rock layers on it.
Folks:
My plan, if and when I get that far, is to emulate the 1:1 railroads and paint it tasteless gray-green.
Pullman Green with a C&O blue skirt held on with velcro
I once saw a fascia that was painted to illustrate the geology (layers of soil, rock, etc.) of the area being modeled. It was kind of neat, but I’m sure it took a lot of time.