Building a new Train Room

In the spring of 2016 I bought my future retirement home, and rented it out until I was ready to retire. The house had a shed in the back yard that I always wanted to make into a train room, as well as a decent sized yard to fix up. In the fall of 2018 I was retired and moved into that home, but I was focused on retirement fun and spent the next 4 years camping, fishing, boating, and riding my side by side.

But last year I got sick, and lost a lot of mobility, so I decided to focus on fixing up my home and make it more comfortable. This spring I compiled a list of things I needed to do, and got started. I had the guest bathroom remodeled, removing the bathtub and installing a low rim walk in shower and king sized throne with new flooring laid.

Also, I needed the electrical service upgraded from 100A to 200A, and I decided to add a 50A 230V drop for a hot tub at the same time. 3 Years ago I replaced the heating to a 98% efficient condensing heater, and seer 16 AC unit, and also addded a 60K BTU garage heater so I can work on trains in the freezing winter, where garage temperature often hovered at 20 degrees F.

This spring the 3 years new AC compressor went out, and was replaced with a silent and better one, and the water heater went out and was replaced with a 96% efficient tankless model. Then the garbage disposal blew apart and threw one of the blades at me but missed! Replaced that one too. Now there was a bad storm, which tore up the roof, so I got a new roof, and decided to get CAMO colored shingles with a 50 year warrantee, as well as ridge vents instead of the typical turtle vents. So you can see, since I am spending some money, I might as well go ahead and do everything I can this year.

So, the train room is the light at the end of the tunnel. Here is my journey to train room, which should be ready in a week or two.

Here is the train shed as it was when I purchased the home. The lady i bought it from had some insulation in, and a floor, but no sheetrock. I think she was teaching dance classes to little girls or some similar activity:


Outside the structure had rotted window planter boxes under the windows so I tore those before the siding rotted.


There was no sidewalk out to the shed, so you have to wade through mud and snow to access it, and there was a rotted wood deck along the house that needed to be dealt with. The storm that trashed the roof also tore up the privacy screen off the chain link fence. I will deal with that mess next year, or after I get the train room built and sidewalks in so I can walk out there easily:


So here is the first phase of sidewalk access, which includes a 10' x 10' pad for a hot tub added. That tree to the left of the pad had to go down too, because it drops heavy branches each storm, and I don't want it to crush my hot tub when it comes:


Now at the end of the hot tub pad, I need a sidewalk to reach the train shed, so I hired the wrong concrete guy, who devised an elaborate scheme to con me into paying for cement mixer of 5 yards of concrete for delivery tomorrow, and that I might as well as pay them for the whole job in the same check, but the clown took the money and bought a pickup truck with it, instead of the concrete, and said that there was no concrete available until after the 4th of July. The story changed to "My new truck broke down and I am hundreds of miles away", but he never came back. He changed his cell phone number, did not pay his sister who was working for him, and shut down his facebook page too. He is probably back in prison by now.


So I hired another contractor to build a gazebo over the hot tub pad, and the hot tub was finally delivered around the 10th of July:


The new contractor was a jack of all trades handyman, and brought a bunch of nephews and nieces to uncrate and place the hot tub for me. The previous concrete contractor had formed the sidewalk, for a 6 foot wide sidewalk instead of a 4' wide one, as I thought it would look cooler if it was wider:


So the crooked concrete contactor's sister wanted to make good on her brother's failure, and she bought 5 yards of concrete on her own dime to make good on the deal, and try to keep the concrete business for herself, and she hired a couple jokers to help her pour the concrete, but when the cement mixer arrived, those jokers were nowhere to be found.
She called them to discover that they decided to take day jobs in the town of Crouch because another contractor had offered to pay them more money, if they blow off the girl in Boise and work for him. Needless to say she had poured only 2 of the 5 yards of concrete all by herself, before it got hard. The truck driver had to leave and dump all the concrete before it hardened in his mixer. So her attempt as taking over the business failed miserably, and I never seen her again.


So the gazebo contractor started his project while I looked for a new concrete guy. I need my sidewalk completed:


The girl was only able to get the sidewalk around the train shed poured and 7 feet of the 38 foot sidewalk towards the house done, but it was formed and ready for pouring and flatwork:

 

As the Gazebo contractor continued with his project I finally found a new concrete contractor who agreed to pour the remaining sidewalk for $1000, so I hired his company:


Meanwhile, the roofers finally showed up, and staged the shingles to reroof the house, the train shed, and the other gazebo in the backyard. Yes I have 2 gazebos now, the Lean To style over the hot tub and a Victorian style one with gas fire pit table.


So the roofers basically shut down all the other contractors work until they were done:


The good news was there was no water damage to the house or train shed roof under the old shingles:


And the roofers were pretty quick at putting a new 50 year roof on everything.


So the next day the new concrete guy poured the sidewalk and my girlfriend had came over to hot tub, so she planted a honeysuckle bush next to the hot tub in hopes of seeing hummingbirds while we soak. She did, the hummingbirds came that afternoon and back a dozen times up till about 10PM while we soaked:


The new sidewalk and new train shed roof came out great. But there's still lots of work to do:


When that tree was chopped down, I had the tree guys leave the stump this high, because being a hard wood, it should last a long time before rotting, and I want to put a fire pit or Chimenea on top of it so we can see the fire at eye level while soaking in the tub. We added curtains, a trellis, a hummingbird feeder, a hanging flower basket hook, and LED Tiki Torch lights around the tub area. You can see the walk through opening at the back of the tub gazebo leading to the train shed here:

So my new concrete guys came back to pour a driveway for my side yard access:


And now, instead of just a 3 car driveway, I can fit 5 cars out front, but I plan on having the sidewalk go all the way to the train shed, so when I open house for the train tours, people can walk all the way from the front yard all the way to the trains on nice easy to access pavement. I am going to have ramps for wheelchair access too.

 

So last week I was in Texas for the 2023 NMRA National, and I had a great time. While I was gone, work around the train shed continued. Also the hot tub gazebo contractor had started work on the patio and sidewalk cover. I wanted to cover the patio and sidewalk all the way to the hot tub this year, and next spring have them back to cover the sidewalk all the way to the train shed, anyways, I like the beefy construction used for the gazebo and patio covers:


So this week the painters came and started work on the train shed. First order of business was to replace the shed barn doors with mainstream doors. Here they installed French Doors with a right hand inswing, replaced the rotted window trim boards. The whole structure was caulked, and the old flooring removed to inspect for any water damage, and there was none, all is good to continue. The shed was painted the same color as the house to match:


I am really happy with the beefy patio and hot tub cover structure. It is all pressure treated 4x4 and 4x6 construction with large black anodized steel tie plates and hardware. I am also pleased with the new roof, where to old one had a dozen ineffective round turtle vents, the new roof has full length ridge vents on all the ridges.


On the front of the shed (which faces the left side as viewed from the house), we installed a recycled front door to replace the old tough shed barn doors. A front door costs way too much, twice as much as the French doors, so this was a Craigslist find. It still needs to be trimmed out to look good:


So here they were installing the front door, shimming it to open and close nice:


And here they were installing boards to hold the roof insulation up. The lady I bought it from put 12" thick fiberglass insulation and set it on 1" blue extruded foam, heltd in place with strings? I don't get it, but the contractors are going to fix it:


Getting supplies for insulation, vapor barrier, and sheet rock work:


And a bit of trimming was painted, it's starting to look better finally:


One of the guys working on vapor barrier installation. Well that's all they have done so far, which brings us up to today. The sheetrock has arrived, and after unloading that, they are calling it a day:

 

Quite the roller coaster story, but also an equally large transformation. Glad to see it!

 

Morning:
Actually, the hot tub is there because I went on 3 different trips camping at Hot Springs in the snow last winter. And I discovered that while I am in the water, I have no Arthritis pain, so I decided to get a hot tub. Bad news last night though, I was soaking with 1 of the jet pumps on, when the breaker suddenly tripped. I got out and tried to reset several times, but it would not reset, so something is shorted inside. I have to troubleshoot it today.


10:45am:
So I unplugged the Ozone Generator, and the tub powered up OK, then I plugged it back in and everything is working again? Oh well, I'll keep an eye on it.

Anyways, the sheetrock work is happening now, starting with the ceiling:



They also have to trim out all the doors outside, so there are trim strips they just primed. Here is a shot of the Victorian gazebo with gas fire pit, and the pergola, which I am going to "Secret Garden" off from the rest of the back yard as though they are part of the Train Shed's backyard. I want to make it park like and interesting, maybe even put in a garden railroad in the coming years"

 

Slow progress getting started after the Labor Day Holiday, but we finally had the doorstep poured today. There will be hard rubber ramps on the right side to make the train room wheelchair accessible. The ramps make it easier for me to get in, and after encountering a few steep steps and duck-unders while going on recent layout tours, I decided to be considerate to my future guests, just in case:


The sheetrock is in, and the walls have been taped:


And mud is going up today, trimming all the interior windows:


The outside guy just finished replacing some bad siding on my house, and is starting trimming out the exterior doors to match the windows. I will have to have a wooden step built for this door, because there are pavers down instead of concrete between this door and the Victorian gazebo. Also, the mini split heat pump arrived, and I got a quote today for running two underground 20A lines, 100 feet between the shed and my new 200A service drop. Both lines will be ran in 1" gray conduit.

 

Jealous! Wow, that looks great! Any particular lighting you will install for the layout that's to be installed in the ceiling, or is all layout and ancillary lighting to be installed separately? I noticed there's relatively few ceiling electrical boxes.

 

I have not figured out what my lighting plans are yet, but I can always add tracks and surface conduit if needed. Just getting a train room itself is my lifelong achievement, having bee relegated to dusty too cold or too hot garages for decades.