So I finally decided I was going to take over the spare bedroom in the basement and expand my HO railroad empire from the 4X8 size it has been for 4+ years. It was based on the Worlds Greatest Hobby plan. At the same time my wife decided she was going to buy a new queen size bed for the room so that her folks have a nice place to sleep when they come. Well I was having none of that. I put my foot down and told her flat out no! I had decided that this was to be my train room and the expansion is happening. Her folks would remain sleeping on the air mattress when they visit. There would be no further discussion.
Well I must say that the new queen size bed looks great in the spare room and I’m sure my in-laws will enjoy it immensley when they visit.
All is not lost though. I ordered the Kato Uni Track kit to build the Black River Junction. I’ll at least have staging and better switching operations.
My wife was away at a dog show one weekend as she often is. Upon her return she opened the front door and saw the Grand Piano in the living room. It was in the soon to be “Train Room” before she left. She gave me “THAT” look and said “I see your railroad empire has been started”[:-^] I think she thought I would never actually get started. Well I showed her![(-D]
What you oughta do is to design the Black River Junction around and under the new queen size bed and operate it by remote control. Then, wait till the in laws are sleeping and set off the diesel horns and/or steam whistles.
As far as the wifey goes, I have the same problem. Whoever elected the spouse as Chief Spoil The Fun Officer?
Ah yes…The Man Song. Truer words were probably never sung. However, many moons ago I tried the same thing - took over a rather large section of the basement one weekend while she was gone. Hmmmm - probably why I am single now.
I live in a 2 bedroom apartment. I didn;t even have to argue to get the use of the larger of the two bedrooms as my train room. Yes, finally one who actually appreciates my hobby and doesn’t complain about it. Third time’s the charm, it is said.
If you are interested in operations, an important modification to make would be to change the staging yards so they feed into the main oval from two different directions rather than both from the same direction as the plan shows. This gives you “east” and “west” staging, which would offer more operating interest and flexibility, IMHO.
It would require some rearrangement and a few different track sections but would be worth it in the long run.
I am not the boss of my house. I don’t know how I lost it. I don’t know where I lost it. I don’t think I ever had it. But I’ve seen the boss’s job… and I don’t want it…[:O]
When I first read this thread I thought about bragging to everyone how supportive my wife is of my hobby, and she is really very supportive. That was up until this weekend![:(!]
To explain - We have a set of four folding card table chairs, one of which I use at my hobby workbench. Without giving me any advanced notice she decided that it would be OK to lend ALL four chairs to a friend for their family Christmas celebration this weekend. I came home from work expecting to relax after supper at the workbench and voila! There I am sitting on my butt with my chin at bench level!
NOT!!
Seriously, as I have stated in the past, I am truly blessed with a wife (Dianne) who fully supports my hobby. She accepts the fact that her car will never see the inside of our garage because that is where the railroad is going (I do get up early in the morning with her in the winter so I can scrape the snow and ice off of her car and warm it up). She accepts the fact that I bought six engines in the past few months despite the fact that I don’t yet have a layout to run them on. She does not get upset when I order hobby supplies, and she is amazed with some of my projects.
I am truly blessed.[:D] I wish it were so for everyone.
When my daughter moved out,my wife knew immediately what i was up when i was helping her move her stuff out.My wife told me to give her some time before i commandered her room for a layout in case she wants to move back home. I gave her some time. A week later I was painting the room sky blue.
My wife and I agreed at the outset that I would make all the big decisions while she could make the small ones. This arrangement has worked really well for 29 years. So far there has been no big decisions to make.
I am fortunate that My Other Half is into trains as well. I do HO scale, MOH N scale. I forced an issue with a small layout in what has become “the junk room”. MOH only gets to run trains onthe under-the-table-top-Christmas-tree layout at christmas time and is hppy.
WHen we go on vacations, it helps that MOH wants to see trains too {we are partial to stemers} so we go to historic and operating steam engine sites.
Mine is “into trains” as well- she “trained” me that my authority in the house extends to one bathroom, when I occupy it, and one half of the garage, otherwise. Guess where my small layout is located? Cedarwoodron
I consider myself very lucky that every one of my EXs was not only supportive of my MRR hobby while we together, but that they didn’t demand half of the layout(s) when we went our separate ways.
Now if only that had been the case with everything else…
Out of a 1152 square foot basement, this is all I could muster…9x9.5. I guess with the other half of my man cave for bikes, the bathroom, family room, her shop and storage room this was all that was left for me. Until she doesn’t move into her shop fast enough on the other side of the wall. [}:)]
