I added a14x14 bonus room to our cellar, and put in a nice szed bathroom with the intention of having a train room and not having to go upstairs to use a bathroom.
This room is now a bedroom for one of our sons who has moved back in with us.
I was going to do an n scale around the room, so much for that.
Another room in the basement is my workshop. That is 18x14. But when it was finished, wifey decided she needed room for more shelving and put two rather large shelf units in there too.
So now I am reduced to a 96"x44" layout, which isn’t bad for a n scale set up. I am trying to get her to move her shelving into the laundry area so I can do an L shaped layout.
If I am stuck with the 44x96, the table will be on castors. Leave it to a woman to complicate matters!
Sounds like a lack of communication. If you told her what you were going to do with the room before she had her own ideas, there shouldn’t be a problem.
I am in a similar (but worse) situation right now.
I was “THIS CLOSE” to having my train room in the space that was the master bedroom. Now we have a family member that needs to stay with us. They will be in the still unfinished new master bedroom, and we are in the partially dismantled old master bedroom.
This is not ideal. I really cannot blame it on my wife. Family needs to come first, and it is temporary.
I agree. We are planning what our retirement will look like. It likely will invovlve a move to SW Florida…possibly Mobile AL area. No basements, so there will need to be a train room. Wife is well aware.
A person can get more house in AL or central FL than SW FL, where SW FL would likely require a spare bedroom. And we are looking for a retirement house for us, not another family homestead to keep 3 kids, spouses, and grandkids for 72 hour visits.
So we both know that we need a place that has a spare room for me…a big one…and the storage of her stuff under the layout. We will continue to talk about how we are going to handle this as we go forward.
When I was looking at larger houses a few years ago, the realtor showed me custom houses with “Man Lofts”, “Pool Table Rooms”, Dojos", “Studios”, and “Workshops”, all of which would have made great train rooms.
They just don’t call them “Train Rooms” in the listings.
It turns out there are a lot of hobbys that require room in the house.
For some reason, the wife actually decided I should set up my trains that had been in boxes for over 30 years. I think she was thinking of a coffee table loop to go around a Christmas tree, with Martha Stewart ceramic structures and artificial snow. My train room was 24x24, upstairs from the garage.
I think she resented it, for no particular reason. I suppose that is one of the reasons she’s now the ex-wife.
My kids are the furthest thing from deadbeats you will ever see. Our home is the family home and always will be, if something were to happen that my kids or other family members needed shelter the door is always open.
My wife is looking at houses always as we will be moving to Vancouver Island at some point. She knows a trainroom is a must and has no issues dismissing a listing without one.
On what you get for your money as far as homes go. The two photos below are of my old house in a suburb of Vancouver and the house I moved to in the stix with a trainroom and theatre and huge garage on acreage so I don’t have to see or hear neighbours, heaven. I was single back then the wife came afterward.
Old house.
New house. Same price as the oneabove, Lawn tractor a must.
When I moved in, I was 8 miles from the closest bus stop. Now it is about a mile, time to escape the madness and find solitude once again.
An observation I have made over the years is that when one spouse has a hobby or multiple interests and the other doesn’t that causes problems. In my case, my wife and I both have an interest in enough things and we are enjoying those instead of complaining about what the other is or is not doing. We are both extremely supportive of each other’s pursuits.
PWRS has a wish list for me and twice now the wife has come home walked into the office, given me a big kiss, and passed a new loco over my shoulder for no reason. So ya she is very supportive. Of course, it helps to have PWRS on the way home from many places.[(-D]
When I first got into HO scale, I went to the far end of our unfinished basement and set up a 4 x 8 table, 1/2" of plywood on 2 x 4 legs. That quickly grew to a 12 x 8 layout. Fast forward a year and I had a 24 x 12 layout across the far end of the basement.
My wife’s sister and husband came over for a visit, and I took my brother-in-law down to the basement to see the layout. The girls followed. He was a committed HO scale addict with a basement-filled layout of his own. He eyed the wide expanses of my basement potentially available for more layout. He swept his hand like Moses parting the Red Sea and proclaimed, "This entire back wall could be a classification yard and hidden staging area. My wife’s shoulders sagged as she remarked, “Nice going, Dave”. His dream came true.
There is only one boss in our family, and Barb said I could be it.
Seriously, if a marriage has a shade more ‘we’ than ‘I’, it tends to make things much better for the marriage, the household, and for general reliability and well-being. So, instead of my wife saying, "I let him have a train layout,’ she would more properly, and in my case correctly, have stated, “We decided that this room would do for the time being and I’m happy he has an outlet…instead of hovering over me, lifting pot lids, asking if I would mind if he goes out for a beer or a coffee…” That kind of thing.
I hav…er…we have had two daughters come back to us. When they are in a bind and need even a few months to get back on their feet, or even if they are moving from away to where we live, but with new work, I don’t see how the missus and I could refuse. It isn’t a permanent thing. They know they can’t live rent-free forever, and when they begin to pay rent and find they’re still around mom n’ pop, they soon find other arrangements. Bonus!!
One other point comes to my mind: if my wife and I had to delay a substantial train build because of circumstances beyond our control, I would ensure that she understands that I still have a legitimate claim to the space, and for the original purpose. If her needs become a problem for both of us, we’d discuss it and figure out how to meet her needs. I’d even be sure to do that first so that I can begin my train room, if it ever happens, unfettered and guilt-free.
The old legal aphorism is, “Possession is nine points of the law.” (It gets mistated as, “possession is nine tenths of the law.”) When land goes unused for long, it tends to get encroached on. Think squat houses. I hope our OP can re-negotiate something more suitable for his needs, and them move milled lumber, bags of screws, a table saw, and a couple more hand-tools into the space, plus all his boxed train models and scenery stuff.
I once had the whole second floor of our little Cape house. Then a boomerang kid returned with a couple of little ones. I feel your pain and then some. I also have a common disease that affects lots of men. It’s called Workshop Induced Financial Exhaustion. WIFE for short.
