So, after deciding that my layout can fit snugly into my walk-in closet, I need to move the clothes we want to keep to the attic. Except the attic hasn't a floor everywhere, so there is limited space to hang things you still want to access a few times a year. That means, I need to put in more flooring in the attic. The access hole is small, the ladder steep. I don't have a car so I need to bring home supplies by bike with a cart. The board that I'll use for the floor is cheap but large. Suddenly me building a model railway in Z has become a question of putting more floor in the attic! It needs to be done, but I feel as if the layout has been pushed away in time... and it has of course, but I wanted to measure and so on, so my plans would be more accurate. Anyway... on the plus side... that board might work as a baseboard as well, so I might not go with the foam anyway... we'll see.
he he yeah, layouts can end up re-organizing your whole life. I ended up buying a garden shed that will become my workshop and layout room.
SHUCKS----I built a whole room in the basement for the Trains and the Railroad. Put up, paneled walls, rerouted HVAC ducting, put a ceiling on floor joists above[one of the smartest things done{dust control}], rewired room and painted floor. Can't decide,carpet, tile, work pads on floor? Want to do floor after layout bench work is set. Don't want bench work set on something that will give. Have a little money invested in the room, but it will pay off in the end. It never hurts to attempt to plan ahead. Get ideas, PLENTY of ideas. See what has worked for others and go from there.
When I bought my house on the lake I turn one bedroom into the living room and the 16'x24' living room became the train and computer room. I lived there for 17 years before moving to the north woods in Wisconsin.
It's funny how one thing leads to another. We rent our house, a chain/row house with a tiny garden, a small shed that isn't winter proof, and where the architect had some funny ideas about useless space... like under the stairs, where the U-shaped stairs doesn't have a platform in the middle, but is screw-shaped instead, removing most of the useful space under it. I wish I could turn the balcony into a shed, but that will never happen. It would never be approved by the landlord. The long side of the living room is facing the garden, and that wall is almost just windows and a glass door. Not the safest from a burglary point of view, but nice to look out... and since the other long wall is no wall at all, it's almost impossible to find a place for the book case, TV and sofa. The upstairs area where I had planned to put my layout when we first moved in, is now the pet room, containing a number of tarantulas, scorpions, frogs, and chameleons. We are both a little bit nuts I guess. So, the walk-in closet is all that's left since both our bedrooms are too small for that. We've planned to expand the floor in the attic for years, so it's nice to finally have a really good reason for doing it.
Wait a minute---You don't own the house? You are planning to do all this reworking. redesign and you are RENTING? Wouldn't do it. What happens when the Landlord sells the house and the new owner adds 1/3 more onto the rent? You had better design a layout that can be moved. If you don't own the building, don't make plans for ANYTHING you can't take with you, when you have to move. You need to look around and see if there is a LOCAL Model Railroad Club around or at least some local modellers that you can work with. You will gain experience and knowledge quickly.
Well, the attic isn't part of the living area, the part we pay rent for. That's how it's calculated in Sweden. The landlord owns the entire complex, it's not a standalone house, it's part of... well... I guess you might call them condominiums? We've lived here for about 16 years so far. Any shelves and so on, I add to the walk-in closet, I take with us if we need to leave. The same goes for the model of course. Some of our neighbours have done a lot more extra work to their houses or gardens. I just figured it was time to get more organised. The attic floor has so far been extended by a few old table tops and an ironing board. Not very safe, but they can hold a few boxes and so on. Fixing proper floor will make it possible to put up a few stand-alone shelves that are hiding in the shed because we had no room for them. My boyfriend hates the fact that we have so little storage space. The attic is somewhat open to the elements, so it's only useful as storage space, nothing else. There's no local model railway club nearby as far as I know. Nothing has come up in my searches. Any local club would want me to model their model, not mine. I understand your concern, porkypine52, but you needn't worry. If things go to hell, I own a sixth of the house I grew up in. My sister will live there when she is ready, but my brother said that if I need to, that sixth of a house will keep a roof over my head in an emergency. Things are different here in Sweden when it comes to renting, even from a private owner landlord (he and his family is like the local Ewings from Dallas... except in houses, not oil). What we bring in, we take with us, so I might even take that new attic floor with me if we have to move some day.
Also, you might convert the balcony to a room but give it one of those camouflage/optical illusion paint jobs that will make it appear like the balcony.
Maybe instead of using your closet, you want to consider running a narrow shelf around your living area at eye level. You could use lift outs across doorways and windows. That way, you wouldn't really lose any space and Z scale allows you to build something quite nice even on a shelf 6" (15 cm) or 8"(20 cm) wide. You could also wind up with a good length of main line at the same time. That way, if you wind up moving, you just take it off the wall and hang it up at the new place. Just a thought.
It's a nice idea, but not possible. One wall is made up of windows and a door, one wall has the bookshelf (three units), the other wall the TV etc. Then there is no forth wall, because they chose to build without that, creating an open space living area that contain the kitchen, dining area, part of the hallway and the living room. The walk-in closet has a 140 cm x 128 cm area that I can fit in a nice U-shaped layout. I just need to store the big overcoats and the odd dress in the attic instead... hence the need for a floor (that I need anyway). But, the talk about moving at some point... I will build the model with the option of taking it apart for moving.
Yeah, you're definitely already using your wall space. OK, let's see- that closet would be about 4'7" by 4'2". That's enough space for a small roundy round in HO, so you could do something quite respectable in Z for sure. If you built it to be moved all would be well.
Z scale can fit on a really small shelf as others mentioned. You can run it down a tiny shelf and then widen out for a station scene or something else. Seems you could build a huge mainline for this along one wall and it would not interfere with anything at all even with balloons for return loops.
I'm still playing around with the layout design, but it looks like I can fit in one larger station, one small local one, one industry (a brewery) and some continuous running as well, playing with elevations and hidden tracks. The final baseboard size will be based on how far I can reach into the corners and so on. The hidden sections (or what is hiding them) must be removable anyway so I can get access to them, so that will help in case of a move.
