I live in Southern California and basements are few and far between (actually, I’m not even sure if I’ve seen one here), so I have to build my layout in our 3rd car garage. This doesn’t make my too happy because the space is limited, and I need the other two spaces for my car and truck ( I guess I should be lucky for the 3rd car space).
So where is your layout or will be your layout? Hey it’s your time to brag about your space. pictures are good too.
Mine’s in the family room. Good points are heating, air conditioning, TV and stereo. Bad points are size limits (only 5x12 feet, free-standing) and sometimes other people want to watch TV and not hear the trains going clickity-clack. The TV is great, because I can plug my engine-cam into it and watch what’s happening.
My 4X8 HO layout is (unfortunately) in the basement. The spring thaw caused a backup of melting snow to come into the train room at ankle depth. Or, in my case caster wheel depth. Insurance adjuster says to replace ALL carpet and floor tiles. So, construction and operating schedules are out the window for now.
BB
I guess I’m a lucky one then. I have 1330 square feet of basement to play in. Unfortunately the CFO would never stand for a 1330 square foot layout…so I have settled for a 126 square foot HO scale layout.
I also am lucky, our lower level (basement) was my wife’s music studio until she retired. Now I have it complete with waiting room with TV. It is also carpeted and climate controled. I had to wait until I was 69 to get it, but it was worth the wait. Mr Beasley, I love your engine cam.
I’ll go Trevor one better. I built a house on top of my basement. The basement is 4450 square feet, but I never planned to use it all. 1750 square feet is more than enough to keep me busy.
Now that I’m my own CFO, that isn’t really an issue. Though I do have to live on a budget, there is nobody to tell me what to do.
That place with the pipes and the wood rafters and the fiberglass insulation (though covered with a clear plastic tarp of sorts) and the concrete floors and the metal columns and the furnace and the electrical panels and the random lightblubs and…
Oh wait! I remember what it is called!
The basement! And it is unfinished :-(.
Sigh. At least it is something…
My fiancee loves me lots and let mehave the whole garage. 19x19 roughly.Just about all the room I need. Out here in AZ, basements are few and far between…which makes no sense to me…
Anyways, Lots of pros to useing the garage… Only thing that sucks is the summer. It gets freakin HOT. I would build it up more, but we are renting so I there is no easy way to insulate (the door is done with 1.5 foam) the roof or add AC.
My layout is in my room, i am so lucky. Hopefully i will get a whole shed to put it in, that would be cool. The limiting factor about having it in my room is that it is only a 4x8, but it is better than nothing. Being a beginner it is better having a small layout.
I just bought a house with 4 bedrooms and I’m single. One of the bedrooms is on the groundfloor, the other 3 are on the second floor.Only thing thats really worrying me is if I shall break through all the walls on the second floor and have a 15’ by 25’ trainroom or leave the smaller room intact as workshop and lounge.Damm do you guys have big basements.
My layout is in the basement. When we purchased the new house, the deal was I get the basement and the garage (3+ cars) and the boss gets the house to do what ever ( decorateing and what not) she likes, gave me the oportunity to begin my largest layout so far ( did three already in N)
Mines in the basement. I have no idea the total basment dimensions but it’s divided in 2 sections by a wall. I can only use about 20x6 for a layout, tho. Maybe someday I’ll have a basement filling layout but right now I couldn’t afford that. The only thing I don’t like about the basement is it’s chilly in the winter (but I duct-taped bubble wrap in the windows and it’s much warmer) but in the summer, the basement is nice and cold I love being cold. The other thing I don’t like it that it’s kinda dark, but the black floor tiles don’t help.
My layout is in the back yard, roughly 12ft by 28 ft. It is temperature controlled to prototypicaly match the daily variances found on local prototypes, and has automatic day/night lighting to exactly follow actual sunrise and sunset times, with periods of low light occlusions as happens during weather events. It is self cleaning using exact 1:1 scale rain drops, cleaverly falling from real clouds.[:D]
Yeah, my deal was I got the basement. I also got the washer, the dryer, the freezer, the Christmas tree, the extra furniture, and several boxes of stuff we’re saving for the kids to throw out after we die. [(-D][(-D] But still I have managed build an 11x18ft layout.
Enjoy
Paul
Mine is in a 1200 square foot basement that I only have to share with the house mechanicals. Right now it is around all 4 walls but will eventually have a branchline running down a center peninsula.
