After many years out of the hobby, getting back to it.
Shelf layout 13’ x 20" with staging at 90 deg angle each end (not showing) . . . only 8 feet of shelf showing
The work area
And a shop area. RR will need protection from dust.
Nice building Tom, that is one mean roof structure!
Mike.
Just think how nice it would be for trains if that shop we’re drywalled!
I agree, at least the wall where the lay out is going. It looks like that would be a challange for the rest, judging by all the “stuff” on the walls.
Mike.
I’m going to be the unpopular one here for a moment…
But please don’t build in front of your electrical panel.
Signed,
A concerned building inspector / fire protection consultant
.
Yeah, All I can see is it is an “eyesore” when you view a layout that has raw, unfinished wall behind it - very distracting and not nice. It’s worth the effort to put up drywall for a nicer back ground and at minimum paint sky blue behind it. Then when photos are shown, it looks TONS better.
It also works just putting a backdrop up, the whole wall doesn;t have to be finsihed. I was actually considering not even drywallign below the level of the layout, only thing going down there will be plastic totes organizing storage, and I wouldn;t need to cut in around electrical outlets, but I doubt there would really be much cost savings.
This is my old layout in progress - it’s pink, because I used extruded foam sheets for the backdrop, but eventually I had poster board to cove the corner and had plans to install some printed backdrops along the whole thing. Behind the wall to the right was a stud wall with insulation, behind the panel towards the top was the poured concrete wall of the basement. Stand back and look and all the ugly was visible, but close up shots of trains saw none of that.
I need to get off my butt and start working on things, or it will be 9 years off for me too. I’m starting my 6th year in my house with nothing to show for it except about 3/4 of the old ugly ceiling tiles removed and trashed. Even after a major cleanup where a 20’ truck load of junk was hauled out of the basement - there seems to be MORE there now than before, which has to be removed before demo happens. I know it’s not mine - every single tain item I’ve purchased since mocing is sitting on my desk upstairs. My pile shrunk considerably when I got rid of all my old paper MR’s. And my son’s old G scale Thomas came to work, sitting on my desk here, I put it around the office tree every year. So I’m doing my part! I’m tempted to make the plumbing changes myself - I hate plumbing, but I maaged to solder on new shutoffs for the washer and they don;t leak, so maybe I can rip out all the water softener hookup stuff (and bar sink) that’s on a wall I want to remove. I made up my mind the room prep was going to happen this year, now I will be doing
Thanks all for the inputs - much appreciated. Yep, that panel. Recall from business nothing within 3 feet . I have some switches at the panel and no structures. Will pain it blue with rest of backdrop. Planning a valence at top of panel with LED rope light - shadow box look. Plans coming and need to get something going.
I’ve seen a few people show construction photo’s of layouts where they only drywalled the upper half. Usually in those cases they created stud walls that sectionalized the layout into scene halls.
In my case, I’m finishing the basement with the expectation that some day the house will be sold and I don’t want to modify the basement in that way as to have to rip out all those studwalls. Rather, I’m finishing the basment as a large open room to give it a flexibility to be used as a rec room by a future owner. So all the walls are standard drywall floor to ceiling finished; any back drops in the middle of the room will be partial mounted to the benchwork.
In the case of the OP, any drywall going in would make the work shop a nicer environment. Even if only one or two walls was done, then the option of fully finishing in the future is possible with some already done. The layout benefits in the mean time.
A 4x8 sheet of half inch drywall is about 11 bucks so slapping a couple up onto the studs would be pretty quick and easy using 1 1/4 inch drywall screws. Cutting around an outlet or two is easy as well, just measure and cut it out with a cheap drywall saw.
In the past I would have suggested hardboard but drywall is surprisingly easy. Even if you have to mud and sand it for a section of the wall, and paint it sky blue, it wouldn’t much work.
Though my basement ceilign is at least 8’ high, and possibly more. As I discovered when I started removing the ceilign tiles, the drop ceiling is really dropped. I’m 6’ tall, I can just barely pop a tile out without using anything to stand on, but then first floor joists are another 2’ higher than that - I haven’t measured but that has to be 9’ at least. I may to the tape and mudding myself, and definitely the paint, but I don’t think I want to try hanging the drywall myself. Wiring rough in, and connecting all the outlets, that I can do as well. There is the “what about after” consideration - I have no intention of moving, though I do look at similar size houses except without the garage sucking up 500 sq ft of basement space - then I think about how many times I’ve already moved and how much I hate it. And how maostof those have no pool. ANd then I think about how I do all the pool work and I’m pretty much the only one who uses it. My plan has a lot of benchwork along the walls, plus a long kind of backwards S penninsula which will be freestanding. Along the walls I planning to mostly cantilever it off the walsl to keep the underside free of legs for more storage - another point to not drywalling the whole thing. Ends up being just holes that can be filled though, after I’m not around to worry about it. So the whole thing will get drywalled - I also have all-mounted heat that needs to go back in, so I need the drywall down to the floor anyway.
A nicely finished area will always be nicer to work in - I’ve been spoiled since my last layout was in a bedroom.
–Randy
Today’s progress. First 8 foot section built and sitting in place. Added the supports for the valance (also removable) and the backdrop sitting place.
I’m thinking now about attaching the backdrop to the studs with velcro strips.
Also, thanks for the tip on using poster board to cove the corner
Oops. Wrong picture. 
So are you saying you already have a drop ceiling but the walls are still unfinished?
Fromt the description, your floor joists above are really high for a basement.
My house was built in 2006 and I measured them at about 8 feet above the concrete basement floor, or maybe a smidgen more. The four beams that run across the ceiling are boxed in and drywalled and about 7 feet above the floor. The flat panel lights I intend to install state they require a minimum of 2 inches between the drop ceiling and the floor joists, but I’m giving it almost double that.
Hanging drywall was surprisingly easy! The mudding and taping definitely requires a bit more learning and developing some skills etc.
It did take both me and my wife to handle getting 4x8 sheets in place to screw them down. Only thing I did that I’m guessing contractors don’t was to shim the dips between uneven studs before hanging sheets. That took some extra time but I was picky.
I think houses that have the under-garage tend to have taller basement ceilings, in most cases.
No, the walls are ‘finished’ too. 2x3’s nailed to the joists (no proper wall ehade), no insulation, no vapor barrier, just various patterns of paneling nailed to the 2x3’s. Ine room has a brick pattern similar to the exterior of the house, another has a straight out of the 70’s woodgrain look, and the third area has a stone wall pattern paneling. Complete with a strange wall with little roof parts over them with a gap for walkign trhough that had a pair of swinging saloon doors (had as I took great pleasure in using extreme violence and rippign them right off). So first the baseboard radiators for the heating have to come off (and of course whoever installed the fairly new boiler negelected to install post-circulator shutoff valves for any of the 3 heat zones…) then all these walls have to be torn out and the rest of the ceiling removed. And the disgustingly dirty carpet removed. Then I can start fresh with bare block walls and just the stairs. There’s a half bath which is staying, not in the best location but it has to stay whereit is because the drains ae in the poured concrete floor, and I am not digging that all out and redoing it. Then I can build up proper walls with insulation on the exterior, and install a subpanel so I can have independent circuits with a centralized shutoff for the layout, right now I’m not convinced the outlets in the basement and the furnace and water heater are even on separate circuits (neither draws much they are gas fired). So all that has to get fixed and set up correcly as part of rebuilding. One thing that bothers me is I have yet to find any support columns. The center beam was boxed with the same sort of paneling. I’ve pulled some off around the stairs, which is about the middle of the spanned space, and so far no support. It’s too far to run unsupported, I think. It has to be in the somewhere, starting to think is exactly the worst possible spot for the layout to fit.
I don’t think I have seen a basement that extends under a garage - I assumed that because the weight of a car or two cars was too much to have overhead. Live and learn!
Sounds like cinder block walls. The basement in the 1950’s built house where I lived in upstate NY had all cinder block basement walls.
Prior to pulling a basement finishing permet, wall outlets were added and plumbing to the unfinished bathroom was done, I made sure there was draft block per code and metal plates covering pipes and wire. I had a basement county code document I could go over to get the basement ready. The inspector passed the rough inspection with one minor exception, I missed protecting one pipe and was able to fix that while he was there.
Walls removed because should be 2x4’s rather than 2x3’s? Where I live, there has to be a draft block at the top around the perimeter and the bottom horizontal 2x4 has to be pressure treated wood.
Yeah, understandable. Thankfully my bathroom rough in is basically out of the way of the layout area and next to the utility room/shop entrance.
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Then I can build up proper walls with insulation on the exterior, and install a subpanel so I can have independent circuits with a centralized shutoff for the layout, right now I’m not convinced the outlets in the basement and the furnace and water heater are even on separate circuits (neither draws much they are gas fired). So all that h
Wow, so many basement questions! I’ve built my share, but at the risk of completely hijacking the OP’s thread, I’ll keep quiet.
Maybe we can get Randy to start his own basement thread? With pictures!
Tempting to go on and on, but I’ll stop there. [#dots] ( not sure what that emoji means, but it look good)
Mike.