My daughter wants to move in with her family for a year while she sells her house to buy a bigger one and needs 3 bedrooms. I am so looking forward to her coming back home, but it means packing up my layout and moving it to storage. This is the second time I have had to do this and it just might be the last because I don’t know if I can do this anymore. I never liked the room anyway and it just didn’t work well for what I have or want. I have a small breakfast room off the kitchen that we use as an exercise room, but my layout will not fit in it and I would have to redesign a whole new layout. I already have 3 sheds and don’t think I’ll be able to sneak another one in without the County taking notice. I also have a large covered patio that is more than large enough, but again it’s not enclosed and I have issues with raccoons, birds, and dust. Winter will be too cold for me to use, but I might be able to make some sort of hinged cover over it to keep the dust and critters out during the summer months. I wish I had the room to put a trailer or RV like mtntrainman has because that would be ideal.
Why not bypass the fixed home layout and build some modules? So you can hook up with other local modelers.
Why don't you not let your daughter move back in? We have very few rules but one is once you move out, you are out (and we're turning your room into an exercise room).
I second the idea of building a layout using modules. Depending on the amount of room you have Freemo-N or if you are spatially challenged and only have room for a couple of banquet tables then T-Trak would work well. If you have room for a N-Trak inside corner or two and a couple of N-Trak end loops then N-Trak would also work. I also cost myself a train ro0m but earlier in life. It became my daughters nursery.
So many kids these days seem to fall back on their parents. I was on my own at 17 and that was it, work hard and use my wits. As already suggested, please consider modules.
We love our kids. They are always welcome home. Things happen in life and they know mom and dad are a 'comfort zone'. That being said; When our 2 sons graduated and went off to college...we got rid of the 4 bedroom and went to a 3. When our daughter graduated and went off to college we went from a 3 bedroom to a 2. When we first bought THERR RV I could hear the wheels spinning in their collective heads. Dreams of living out in the RV where shattered the moment I took to gutting it. We have always had a sofa/sleeper. The kids know where they will be sleeping if they need to come back home. "Clean you room" is still rule #1. THERR RV is always my sanctuary when my kids and their kids may come to stay for 'awhile'. Living on a hide-a-bed with kids tends to light a fire under them to get their life back on track and find a job and find a place of their own again. They are and always will be our children no matter how old they or we are. I have my bedroom and my Train RV. They can take over the rest of the house again for awhile. I love spoiling the grandkids and then disapearing into my bedroom or out to the trains. LIfe is always good at our house
This is a little off from train advice, but, your daughter doesn't really sound like she is in need if she is selling one house to buy a bigger house. She is using your house for her convenience, but at your inconvenience. Perhaps she should share the inconvenience by using only 2 of your bedrooms? I don't know your actual situation, so that may not be possible. But kids can share rooms for a year, either with another sibling or with a parent. Denying you your hobby for a year (or the rest of your life, if you "don’t know if [you] can do this anymore"), seems like a very high cost to you at this point in your life. Does your daughter understand that?
I know you appear loath to start over on a layout... but have you considered an around-the-walls shelf in the exercise room? Done properly, the room could likely do double duty, and you will not have really "lost" any space. They are not very hard to construct, either, and can provide tons of train fun.
I don't understand why your daughter is moving out to sell the house. Stay there, keep it clean and staged (hard to do with kids) and then move out when it is sold and into the new house. My kids know that they are welcome to visit, but not move back into. Gary
I don't know what to say. Maybe second some of the suggestions already made. That would work. My son or daughter would always be welcomed back home as long as it's temporary. Besides, my place isn't much bigger then George's RV. So, it may not be the solution they'd be looking for. It is true I'd rather they solve their own problem and let me move in with them. LOL I would need a train room. Priorities you know!! Having a model railroad in my own tin can of a mobile home, doesn't work. I need the living space I have just for me. No storage for the things I want to store and I've been broken into twice. Oh...and, I don't like the tin shed my layout is in. More work then it's worth but that's another story for another time and place. So, what's a guy to do?
This sounds like a new house is going to be be built - one house would need to be sold first before a construction loan is obtained then the buyer lives elsewhere while its being built. In this case the daughter is moving back to save monies versus renting a house for a year. Otherwise, there's no need to move into a temp house in a traditional house sale unless the selling and buying are in different markets (selling is fast and buying is slow). If the current layout room doesn't work well and you are not satisfied with other ideas you may want to re-evaluate your own wants and needs to better fit a smaller or different location. Maybe a different variation/locale/era for your modeled prototype or freelance railroad? Shelf layouts, hollow-core door layouts, or modules all could work in a smaller space. You could partially/fully enclose the patio turning it into more of a sun room with more proper insulation/windows but that would be a bit more of an effort but may work if you are really set on a larger space. Could you replace a shed with a larger one or re-purpose one if they could be made more weather -resistant so you can stand to be in it year-round? Take over part of the garage if you have one (I had to do this after having being evicted from a spare bedroom) assuming that it and any other free space isn't filled with your daughter's boxed goods? There are plenty of opportunities and you shouldn't have to put your hobby life on hold for year. Peter
You could always do the 'Hanging HCD' like I did until I bought THERR RV... http://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/new-hanging-hcd-layout.60812/ Fold it up until company leaves. Just an Idea.
Having started on 3x6 (essentially HCD).... discovery was that I'd build something that I could no longer get out of the room without destroying it when I had to move. Ever since then.... semi-modular or completely modular. Nothing bigger than 27x48 so that I can get it through doors - upright. Main layout has now moved three times. Look over on the T-track thread and see what I've got under construction. As I play with that new modular concept it has at least convinced me that I can continue building stuff that will last as long as I do without demolition being part of the inevitable end story. I won't get into the family debate part. I will observe that external forces sometimes regarded as hostile at the time lead to life changes that in retrospect, turn out to be some of the best turning points in forward progress.
Actually I’m excited for her and the grand children to move back in. We have a large house, much too big for us and I really miss having a house full of kids so I’m looking forward to it. I guess she is planning on renting her house out for a year so she will have more money to put down on a larger house. My house is paid for so it would be rent free for her. I don’t really know why she needs a larger house, but that’s what she wants. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much I hate my current train room and it’s probably about time I get out of there. My layout is partly modular, but it is pretty much fixed to the shape and size of room. I don’t know how this happened because I was pretty set on keeping it modular. Oh well, I guess I could pull up some track and reroute it. I can’t move it into the garage because I have a full-blown wood shop currently taking up all the space, so it looks like I may be stuck with the back patio. I’ve been thinking about screening it off to keep the birds out for a while now because I’m tired of all the bird crap, but that still doesn’t solve the problem of cold in the winter.
Maybe you can find some room in one of the other two sheds? Will your daughters family play trains? Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk
I originally got into N scale because the basement area I had for an HO layout was about 10 x 12 and although it was damp, and comparatively dark, it was still mine. I had a fairly big ATSF steam layout, multiple trains, scenery, whole deal. And it ran pretty well - lots of Tyco/Mantua. AHM and Athearn. I was building Walthers passenger car kits and Alexander Models craftsman structure kits toward the end. I had even done my first full-train staging tracks, and was eyeballing the rest of the basement. My father retired early and decided to go into precision woodworking as a hobby. He took all the rest of the basement and as soon as that started, it was sawdust. Over everything. He had a vacuum over the saw and equipment, didn't help with the fine airborne stuff. He put up a plastic roll-up wall. Still didn't help. About age 14 my layout was just ruined - unrunnable. "Either you figure out a way to keep the dust out or I'm just going to have to junk everything I've done!!!!" Well, that threat certainly didn't work. "That's OK with me, I need the space to store wood in anyway". So I sold all my HO but about 4 pieces and gave up. However, my father was somewhat surprised that 'grown men' he knew professionally were buying my stuff that he softened somewhat, and I wanted to be allowed to have a permanent layout in my bedroom although it would take up about 25% of the floor space. The 'HO slotcar table" got a 3x6 plywood sheet laid on it, and in March 1972 I picked up a used Aurora (Trix) N set from a friend for $20.00. In June I rode across the US on Amtrak on the Santa Fe. When I got to California he relented and took me to the Whistle Stop Hobby Shop.... and you can fill the rest in yourself. That 3x6 foot made Railroad Model Craftsman by the time I got it finished, but when I got married and wanted to move, what I'd brought in in pieces no longer could make it out assembled. Scrap of a finished layout that was magazine-worthy. Lesson learned. FWIW I still have nearly all of my fathers wood shop hardware - learned how to run the stuff and it's useful, not a hobby to me, but darn useful. If you can figure out to coexist, you may be able to bring your grandchildren in with you and let them participate. Hard to say how that will play out, but I doubt very much it will be a bad thing. If Puddington didn't teach us anything else, those wonderful kid shots did. Oh, and if N hadn't existed, or be able to operate in a smaller layout with 11" curves and truck mounts, I would have given up entirely. I'll always defend the N scale guys that are in the scale because there's just not enough space to work in HO and it's either this or nothing. Not everybody has a basement, 30" curves, and 20' tangents. I've learned to be a lot happier with a smaller, better-done, and maintainable 1:160 world, although now it's the 5'6 x 8' layout, and three more modular portable layouts that can be connected or independently run.
I know what you mean, I was on a Greyhound bus just before my 17th birthday headed to CA from PA and got a job at GM before being drafted into the Army at 18. My daughter left home right out of high school against my will so I'm glad that I can accommodate her now even though now she has 2 lids and a husband. LOL
My sheds are full. one filed with Christmas decorations, another with garden tools and supplies and the last one filled with lumber & hardware for my wood shop. I hope I can pull my grandson away from his video games to run trains, but it might be hard.
Well this is what I originally had in mind when I first started because I had a house full at the time, but then they started to move out and I wanted to run longer trains. LOL
Wow, I left home the day after I graduated high school and have never been back except to visit. In a role reversal, my parents are now living in one of my homes because of the fiscal nonsense that Merrill Lynch diverted their savings to cover their losses and left them with nothing. As a parent myself, I hope my daughter will be able to handle her life on her own like her parents have. But that said, I would never turn her away either.
