The wifey!

When the alarm company was labeling all the doors and windows and motion detector on the control panel they asked the wife what to label the doors and windows and motion detector in the trainroom. She said trainroom window, trainroom door and trainroom motion detector. Then for my workspace said to call this the trainroom office.[(-D]

We have a lot of people come through the house because of the wife’s dog hobby. The husbands are right into the layout if they discover it, however, too many of the women folk are just horrified when they see it. One person who probably came over three or four times a year would never stop saying negative things about it. One day she said to my wife “how could you let him do this to your house”? I said to her “you know, not once has any of my friends asked me how I could let my wife have six dogs”, to which my wife added, this was his house long before we ever got married. She has never been back again, my wife was just as tired of her as I was. There are a couple of others I would be happy not to see again. Their husbands must have a miserable existence.

I am surprised by how many of the visitors have layouts, one guy had a huge British layout and when he spotted my layout through the door said “where have I seen this before”? Then remembered seeing it on this forum. [(-D]

Rebuilding after a fire, walking up the stairs to the studded upstairs to the 13x22 space “That’s the trainroom” from the wife’s mouth. Easy to agree to on my part. As I was working about 25/8, set up a 4x8 for the grandchildren (me too). Before any more progress, son moved home, took over tne space. Now his son and girlfriend live there. Me I got sent to the cellar, 7x14 space (1/3 original space that I had been buying for). Now I go to shows to sell, not buy. Having trouble getting motivated to get the 2’ shelf up, I think if I once get started it will go well, but I’m hung up on the enterance gate.

Have fun,

Richard

When my kids and step kids were under 35, we had a big enough house that they could come back and not effect my personal space. A few came back for a few short stays. They quickly realized they could no longer live with their mother…

Today the wife would not let them come back, she would rent them a house first…

My personal space at the new house is the entire basement. My wife goes down there about three times a year.

And I do have plans to build a detached garage, not as big as the last one, but big enough.

Any marriage that is not a reasonably equal partnership is doomed to failure. “she who must be obeyed” - I think not. “happy wife - happy life” works fine if there is mutual respect.

When we owned the 4,000 sq ft Queen Anne house, I had a 1,000 sq ft layout room above the 6 car detached garage I designed, and a model train workshop in the 1901 basement, which was otherwise not suitable for a layout of any size. Too many posts, low ceiling, a/c ductwork, bad arrangement of utilities, air handler, oil tanks, boiler, well tank, extra washer/dryer, extra frig, etc.

The new retirement house, a brick rancher, has a nice basement, with the much simpler utilities nicely in one corner for the most part, no low hanging ductwork becasue the heat is hot water baseboard and the a/c is in the attic where it belongs in a rancher.

So I have a nice 1500 sq ft layout space and room for a workshop as well.

And the little bit of stuff she wants to store will fit nicely under the layout in plastic tubs.

She knew when we met I was a model railroader and she understood long before we moved in together with our combined five teenagers what my needs would be.

A deal is a deal - there are things that are deal breakers.

The layout I am starting now will be the third since we got together 28 years ago.

And after all, I fulfilled one of her biggest lifelong dreams. I restored this for her, and we enj

My grandfather got smart. Whne he lost his litle space for his 4x8 postwar lionel (whren it wasnt post war) (which that layout sat 5 feet left of where i am sitting to typ this) he was bale to build a large 3 car garage, he got smart by adding a whole second story inbstead of just a loft. Always been trains up there since 65, and mine are up there now. Along with what was his when he was alive

Shane

Quite right, 100% agree. My wife knew I was into model trains (among many other hobbies) when she met me and is supportive. That means I need to support her as well and not hog space and resources.

Beautiful home, Sheldon. You folks back East don’t realize how spoiled you are. In the southwest there is no such thing as a basement and any space must be climate controlled or it’s unbearable 4/4 of the year.

Frost requirements for foundations here require depths of 3-4 feet. By the time you did a foundation that deep, building a basement is not that much more work or money.

So basements are nearly free space here. Easily 90% of single homes have basements, and generally they are dry, temperature stable spaces with very low heating and cooling costs.

In my case, the new basement is completely in the ground all the way around the house since we are on a very level lot. The basement temperature stays between 65 and 75 year round, and a deh

To make wifey happy I have only a modest layout in HO, along the long basement wall, with a return loop at each end, and 3 different scenes, two of which just blend into each other…and an 81 lineal foot mainline run. The scenery is very rural and simplistic.

It kept wifey happy and left some play room for the kids in the basement, though my NOT allowing kids to throw balls around down there while playing was kind of a downer for the half a dozen sleepover parties my one son had…but that’s a half dozen parties or so in 21 years. He will be 21 in a couple weeks, and is pitching in college. No baseball players come over any more; the others of his class are done playing (they all thought they were better than him, funny how that works out).

The trains still remain. My younger son, 16 today, does actually have some trains and does use them occasionally.

I am interested in downsizing to a 5 x 9 or 6 x 10, for movement to the next and smaller house. Wifey says keep the layout until we are ready to move. It’s built and paid for and not hurting anything where it is. I have no illusions about my scenery and cats have been hard on it (eating the HO palm trees, corn field and pumpkin patch). It’s never going to get into MR.

I suppose I could have had more layout, but she thinks it is big enough, and I never really felt guilty about the right-of-way taken from the basement. I was able to run my trains, as long and as fast or slow as I want, and simply railfan my own layout. It’s been a good 18 years. I am ready to downsize the 1900 square foot house to a more affordable to heat and cool residence (thanks to the idiots in Washington making Russia and China great again at our expense). My electric bills are up over 50% since May, with more cost increases coming (all electric heating and cooling).

My one friend who has 2000 freight cars and more than 300 engines, but no up and running layout, is

I have a 22x33 basement that I’m slowly refinishing to be the train room. She convinced me to cut down the “layout” area to 2/3rds of the space. At first I balked but I think the idea of a lounge for myself isn’t a bad trade. She also had a request for a closet to store the bins of Christmas decorations.

Conversely, she has absolute authority in decor for the rest of the house. I think I made a fair trade. I like her taste anyhow.

It was going to be my train room until my son moved back home, since the company he worked for shuttered unexpectedly, and it is home for the family. In n scale an around the room shelf layout would have been great!

96x44 isn’t too bad for n scale. Though there is the dissappointment in losing the train room.

My wife isn’t against trains, when her friends call, she’ll say, “Oh, he’s down there playing with his trains!”

One day we got off work early and when I got home, her car was in the driveway, but she was nowhere to be found, until I went into the cellar where my layout was, and she was in there having a good old time “playing” with my trains!

I bought my house with a full basement, with an eye for a train room. The house is on a hill, and one side is a “walk-out” basement. But here in northern Michigan even an insulated walk-out basement can get very cold. So the collection of O and HO went into the unused second floor upstairs. I finally got a 4x8 foam board and put O and HO test loops on it. By this time I got married and my wife encouraged my hobby. So much so that she and others started giving me model train paraphernalia that soon covered the train table before I could get a proper layout started. In the meantime she bought a glass topped coffee table, and created an N scale loop under glass, but with a town full of fine scale buildings, scenery, etc. She also has quite a collection of engines and cars. My 4x8 does not have access to the back of the table so we are looking at clearing another room which has accumulated a lot of knick-knacks and seasonal decorations.

Yous-guys gotta all wrong!!

It be da man of the house that lays down the law! In my house, I am the king of the castle, the lord of the manor… and, oh yeah… yous guys better believe it… because…

I can put my lawn mower in any corner of my half of the garage… and she ain’t got nothing to say about it!!

Umm, is that still ok with you “honey-dumplings”? [:-^]

Jim

No way!

Oh that is too funny.

Now you got her where you want her.

I love it.

Rich

I took over the entire basement of my condo building and no one cares. I should be good as the trains never make it upstairs and there’s no evidence of the hobby. had a temporary 4’ X 20’ layout and no one said anything.

That is the beauty of a poured concrete, heated and cooled, basement in the Midwest such as the Chicago suburbs where I live. From November through March when golf and yard work are out of the question, I have my layout to visit 24/7.

Rich

We also have a dry, heated and cooled basement. I have put in three bedrooms there, each with an egress window. It’s nice to have those bedrooms at Christmas when the entire family comes for several days. The grandkids all sleep very well in the basement.

Wow, what a range of scenarios! We have a modest 2 bedroom home. And we’re foster parents of a deeply loved and deeply disabled Daughter.

I have an external 10x20 train outbuilding, insulated and heated easily by a little stand alone heater. My wife is grateful that I have a hobby I can enjoy without being away from the home. She likes the trains too, but isn’t involved hands on. Dan

An interesting variety of responses. I figure that the Bear is a lucky chap when I hooked up with Her-in-Doors, though I found out years later that there was a “book” held on how long we’d stay married! It varied from 3 months to 3 years. I wish I’d have known, coz I’d have cleaned up!!

I didn’t have a hobby when I met Her-in-doors, and when I got into model railways, she was a bit, “Grown men playing with trains?!!!”

However, I can thank two men for changing her mind, my Dad who reckoned that having time for a hobby was wasting valuable work time, and sadly paid the price for not having one when he finally had to retire. Her-in-Doors does not want me to end up in that situation!!

More recently the second gentleman is the Forums own, Mr. Mark Pruitt. Her-in Doors looks forward to Marks monthly video updates as much as I do, and I’m now getting asked when I’m starting my (our?) layout! She is also talking about assembling suitable buildings for her next winters project!!

“Fan me with a plate of soup!!!”

Don, why not simply ask for a shelf on each of the units to extend your layout across? Minimal loss of storage for her, good gain for you. I did something similar in our basement. We needed lots of storage shelving, so I built a 2’ x 16’ shelving unit in place. One shelf is the staging yard for the trains the rest is less important stuff.

Even here in the more temperate Mid Atlantic, I would not have a walk out basement.

And there are a lot of them around here.

Most people don’t realize this, but if you look at a geography map of the Mid Atlantic, you will see that right were we are, between Baltimore and Philly, the piedmont plateau actually reaches the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay.

So while we are just minutes from the Bay, we are technically in the foot hills of the Alllegheny Mountains.

Housing developements built in these rolling hills lend themselves to walkout basements.

But my wife can’t do hills or stairs any more, a rancher on a flat lot with a deep basement was the requirement - I found it. On two quiet acres still close to things we need.

Sheldon.

We have a small house and there is tough competition for space. I ended up creating my own space by dividing my workshop in two, with walls and everything. I quickly built a permanent around the walls layout. There is no way that the space can be repurposed at this point! My wife still occupies most off the space in the house with her weaving activities… It’s good leverage [:)].

Simon