Hi Guys,
Some of you may recall that my wife and I are planning a new home and in fact have a builder looking at our ideas right now. At this point, we are planning my train room and my wife’s sewing room on the 2nd floor of a 2-story home. The upstairs is about 1,200 square feet with a bedroom and bathroom. She will use the bedroom for sewing and I’ll use the balance of the space for trains. We’re planning the master bedroom and a 2nd bedroom on the first floor, along with kitchen, family, dining, living room on the first floor. So, for the sake of resale, we will still have a 3 bedroom home, with the 3rd bedroom upstairs with a huge “game” room.
The builder just mentioned that due to the grade of the property, we could build a single-floor home with a walk-out basement that he could finish into a workshop, sewing room and of course, my train room.
We’re a little spoiled right now because while our condo is small, we have the upstairs for sewing and trains. It’s a real nice space that feels a lot different than basement space. However, we have seen some real nice finished basements, especially walk-outs, where there are plenty or windows to provide natural light.
What I’m asking you guys to comment on is the following:
If cost were not an issue, what would you rather have, a 2nd floor train room with windows on all 4 walls or a trainroom in the basement, considering the basement will be a walk-out with windows at least along the back wall where the walk-out is?
One of the benefits I can think of with the basement layout is that the workshop is close by, including things like a spray booth. Certainly, with the 2nd floor trainroom, I’ll have a workbench to build kits and work on freight cars etc., but I’ll have to go 2 flights down to the basement to do spraying or any other work that I currently do outside or out on my garage workbench.
One problem that always comes to mind with a basement “anything” is the potential for d