forgot to add that the floor is sinking. kind of sucks. the people never put the hardwood floor in this room. just crappy boards or plywood i think. after being around for 70 years you have to expect this.
You guys with basements are lucky. I live in Florida and I have never even seen a basement. We tend
to build up not down around here. I currently use the closed-in patio room, which works until I can
build my detached train room, I mean garage. Dave
Mines either gonna be 5x8 or 4x8. Got sort of a half octogon shaped room.
Yes.
I made sure to leave myself a “small” train room when I built my current home. The house is a rambler (or ranch) with all of the living space on the main level. The basement is the same size as the main level. 4450 square feet each level (no its not a typo, the total is 8900). The train room is only about 2000 square feet (40’ X 50’). There are two attached garages, one for cars, the other for workshop. The workshop is next to the train room and up a short 3 stair flight, making it easy to bring materials in. I model in 3 rail O.
I DID MY HOMEWORK.
after the wife was gone I now have a 1600 sq feet living, lots of trains and nobody to tell me what NOT to put in there.
I GUESS I DID MY HOMEWORK *** WELL!
dharmon –
I was in the same situation as you for 26 years of US Army active duty. I did manage to build a small layout once in the attic of a building in Munich, Germany, and left it there when we were reassigned. The cost of particle board in Germany, which was the cheapest available product, was astronomical! I eventually put everything in storage for several years because every time I was transferred the movers lost, stole, or damaged practically all of my locomotives. Several years after I retired in Sierra Vista, Arizona, I discovered that there is a local HO scale club, and joined it. As far as room in the house is concerned, no one makes houses with basements or attics in Arizona, so if you don’t own a house that is custom built with a special layout room added on, there’s not much chance of having room for a layout. A few modelers in this area who do have home layouts either had rooms added onto their houses or the layouts are in an outbuilding. One man had a large pole barn built to house his layout and machine shop.
I have a 9+ X 11+ room, actually an insulated heated finished shed, once served as a workshop, now have a garage so the room has an around the walls layout. Would love to double the length, add 2’ to width. Using the garage is out of the question. our house is a small 2 bedroom, no basement. Adding on a room at some future date would be the only possable solution. Wife puts no restraints whatsoever on space RR takes up, just common sense rules here. Still, it’s great to have a place at all for a layout. Dan
Sorry Guys but you can have to much of a good thing. Layout can be to big to maintain satisfactorily, particularly if you are a one man band. My current layout on which I have spent 9 years constructing to date uses about a quarter of the available space. I guess I find quality more pleasing than quantity.
NO, but I can’t complain too much as it’s the first time I’ve ever had an entire basement to do whatever I wanted, for various reasons, since I was a kid. I’ve got a total area down there of around 24 by 38 feet, BUT it’s a 100 plus year old house so I’ve got posts and a couple brick support walls in the way . A couple of these walls have the furnace, and I’ll be moving the hot water heater that area, too. This isn’t a room, just a 7 by 15 foot open area between two of the brick walls which are about 7 feet long, and one of them is L-shaped. It’s been a challenge but I’ve manged to work around all this stuff to design a layout I think I’ll be happy with.
The greater size I would want would mainly be, not to create more of the same over and over again, but to have greatly expanded out in the open running between towns. Also to fit a couple more industries or make bigger ones in existing limited areas, and to also have more room for scenic treatments, parking lots, more modeling of town and residential areas rather than just hinting at them on backdrops, etc. And I would probably add one or two more areas of interest - town, switching opportunities, interchange/junction area - I have these things already, but just would like a couple more to extend certain areas I am currently happy with but wi***hey were bigger. And wider aisles.
And of course, if I had more room I could also add a crew lounge and decent sized workshop. The ideal size then, I’m guessing, for what and how I would like to do it with the current layout design and track plan, would probably be something closer to 30 by 60 feet. Of course the shop, crew lounge, staging and helix(?) areas would be in addition to that area!
Is anything ever big enough for our dreams…
If they could be contained, they would not be called dreams.
Even if its one track with a few buildings on a shelf, it is big enough because
you are active. To sit and dream is nice, but to stand and build, that is fulfillment…
Have a nice day.
i think the White House would still be too small.
Some day…some day…
I told my wife that when we settle down, if she needed a place to sew, I needed a place for me…
The workshop doesn’t count. It’s a joint space since 99 percent of what id done there is for her anyway…
My current space is 10’ X 11.’ It’s a start, but I would like something on the order of 20’ X 20.’ Much larger than that and I would have to start a club to keep up with it.
Warren
If it was, I wouldn’t be out in the garage now, would I?
[quote]Originally posted by dknelson
*The house is fine, the basement is fine. My problem is my butt spends too much time in a chair reading and not enough time laying track. People can always move but they are stuck with the butt nature provides, alas. What I need to to is to get rid of every magazine and book and picture and slide in the place. And no chores to do (which means get rid of the wife too). And the workshop – too many projects. And the laundry. I guess I need to be a prisoner or in jail but then I wouldn’t have the basement. Ah well.
[/quote]
*
ROFL! Great post. [:D]
I’ve had to settle for a 12X12 spare bedroom in my current home, which has a basement but it’s not suitable for model railroading. My house is over 100 years old and has a huge cast iron boiler in the basement…which you access by going outside the main house, a pain during the winter months. Love the house, just hate the limitations. Come next year that will change, when I finally have a ranch home with it’s long basement–and interior access. Still, I’m making do with what’s available and having lots of fun. By the way, you don’t need to live in a million dollar house to have adequate room for trains. I do know a guy in Houston who owns a modest home w/o a basement. His solution was to knock out a wall separating two bedrooms, and now has sufficient room to enjoy the HO layout he’s always wanted to build. Living in the Midwest where homes and basements seem to go hand in hand is a big plus.
Yes. And it ain’t really my house, but I did grow up here.
I envy the guys who say they “only have 8’ x 12’ for a layout”
That’s huge to me!
I have the whole basement but now I wish I had modeled in N-scale instead of HO. Whereas HO looks good, I think I could have given the impression of a larger country in N.
Let that be a lesson to the rest of you! [swg][:-^]
Alas, no, but I have hit on the solution! After 2 years in a regular modular HO club, and being unhappy with the round and round, wanting real operation, I have discovered Free-mo! I can set up and work on a module in just a few minutes, take it down or leave it up depending on whether I need the space for something else. The concept is end to end or out and back, mostly single track main, but with sidings, yards, branchlines, etc. These assemblies can be modest to humungus depending on the size of the space available. The modules are bigger, but lighter, using a plywood frame with foam deck, thus are easier to transport and set up. A great alternative to explore! John Colley Port Townsend, WA