I guess I'm blessed in having a wife that at least tolerates my hobby. My switch to N scale was brought about by her insisting that if I wanted a layout in our townhome, it would be better if it were an N scale one. When we went to the local hobby shop to check out locomotives, I picked out an Atlas GP7- she was somewhat disappointed I didn't also get the SW9 and GP38-2 I was looking at. I just finished painting the living room , tearing out the old carpet in anticipation of new, and installed a new ceiling fan. In return, I've got at least a week of uninterrupted layout-building, plus the promise of gift certificates at Lobo Mountain Trains. She's tolerated my railfanning, RR club buddies, and the time I spend at our club pike. As long as I take care of business around the house, she's OK with it. The word here, guys, is balance. Keep the spouse & family first, and you'll never go wrong.
I will never get my wife Glendia to type a message here. She supports all of my hobbies whole heartedly. She is the one who suggested we take the back 11 feet of our garage and turn it into a train room. The old layout was in that part of the garage but it was to cold in the winter to do much with it. She picked out cloud wallpaper for the walls above the layout and the train border that goes around the ceiling. She and my grown daughters all buy me train related stuff for my b'day and Christmas. We go to train shows together looking for layout items. In return I support her Chersihed Teddies collection. I bought her a very large Curio cabinet for Christmas last year to put her bears in. She has over 200 of those little critters. Balance it what matters and it woirks well for us.
