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Story, So we went and got this nice sized retirement ranch home.  All living quarters on one 2k sq ft floor, which means the same space for the trains in the basement.

Problem: my wife was showing her friends the RR I am building.  Their first response to my wife was "where's your space in the basement"?  My wife put them in their place, upstairs.  Make it simple.  Keep 'em out!!

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Fortunately, I don't have that problem. Wendy, my wife-to-be effective Dec. 18 when we will make it official, and I are renovating a ranch-style home and the agreement we made was that the upstairs living area, aside from my home office, is her's to do anything she cares to do with it. Since cooking is her passion, she now has a kitchen that includes everything she wanted and/or needs. The basement, aside from the laundry area, is mine, and it is currently being worked on by my contractor, with layout benchwork to get underway before the end of the year. About half the basement will be a train room exclusive to  the layout, and the other half, which includes a fireplace,  will be a lounge/man cave/safe space, or whatever other term one might want to apply to an area when train friends can gather to watch videos or TV, enjoy some snacks and beverages, and engage in train talk.

I will be posting progress reports on the forum, and also documenting building of the layout (lessons learned, in particular) in the magazine over the next couple of years. It will be a medium-size layout, not an expansive empire, because I want something that I can comfortably manage, maintain, and have fun with well into the future. I hope to incorporate a good number of operational capabilities in this layout since that is an aspect of the hobby that increasingly interests me and I want to be able to do more than just watch trains run around in circles (although continuous running will also be possible).

A comfortable home office upstairs and a train room downstairs... does it get any better than that?

You have to prove its UN-Livable space... a simple fake rubber snake or LARGE dead spider carefully placed in the basement will resolve all wants of a lady going to the basement. Let alone living in one.

We had a wounded bat in our fully refinished basement, a mouse, and Gardner snake found over the course of 20 years in our home (It just happens) . All of them my wife found on accident, She has never returned in the last 8 years, let alone wanted to sleep down there.  Ah train heaven!

 

 

Last edited by J Daddy
Engineer-Joe posted:
Allan Miller posted:

.... The basement, aside from the laundry area, is mine,

.. does it get any better than that?

Yes, .....

I moved the laundry upstairs!

Can't argue with that, I guess, but I have a fairly decent-size basement already (whole-home footprint) and have relatively modest layout needs (after many years of building layouts and many moves). The area I have for the layout will serve me quite well, and equally important to me is the lounge area which has cable TV, leather sofa and recliner, dining room-type table and chairs, and a fireplace. Will eventually have a refrigerator, microwave, popcorn maker, coffee maker, and ample wall space for my train display cases. Should result in quite a comfortable space for me and any visitors (train buddies) and the trains can still be easily viewed from that area.

lewrail posted:

After 30 years we finally got smart and moved the laundry upstairs into a large closet.  Makes it much easier to do the laundry and enabled me to double the size of the operating train room.

 

Lew

It made perfect sense to us as well... until the clothes washer sprung a leak... I was lucky, caught it before it flooded us out. I since have installed a drain in the floor.

It made perfect sense to us as well... until the clothes washer sprung a leak... I was lucky, caught it before it flooded us out. I since have installed a drain in the floor.

We moved our laundry up to the second floor during a recent remodel.  The washer sits in a shallow basin designed to capture any leaks. Plus the area has a ceramic tile floor. My wife loves having the laundry in its new location. I reclaimed the space in the basement.

To fully utilize the around the wall space I wanted I replaced the hot water tank with a Rinnai  tankless water heater, raised the water meter, raised the circuit breakers, ran wire molding around the outside door, moved the washer/dryer to the main floor, cut right a way holes in two walls,  removed a non supporting cinder block wall and replaced 40 feet of wall mounted cast iron sewer pipe. 

Allan Miller posted:

Fortunately, I don't have that problem. Wendy, my wife-to-be effective Dec. 18 when we will make it official, and I are renovating a ranch-style home and the agreement we made was that the upstairs living area, aside from my home office, is her's to do anything she cares to do with it. Since cooking is her passion, she now has a kitchen that includes everything she wanted and/or needs. The basement, aside from the laundry area, is mine, and it is currently being worked on by my contractor, with layout benchwork to get underway before the end of the year. About half the basement will be a train room exclusive to  the layout, and the other half, which includes a fireplace,  will be a lounge/man cave/safe space, or whatever other term one might want to apply to an area when train friends can gather to watch videos or TV, enjoy some snacks and beverages, and engage in train talk.

I will be posting progress reports on the forum, and also documenting building of the layout (lessons learned, in particular) in the magazine over the next couple of years. It will be a medium-size layout, not an expansive empire, because I want something that I can comfortably manage, maintain, and have fun with well into the future. I hope to incorporate a good number of operational capabilities in this layout since that is an aspect of the hobby that increasingly interests me and I want to be able to do more than just watch trains run around in circles (although continuous running will also be possible).

A comfortable home office upstairs and a train room downstairs... does it get any better than that?

Congratulations on the marriage. Many happy years to you both!

Between our classic cars and my trains I can basically do what I want, as long as she gets what she wants too. Works really well for us.

Last edited by Jayhawk500

AS I am the wife, and my hubby loves my trains- I have no such problem! We've been looking at a larger house out of CA, and I've already commandeered a large loft bedroom for my Std. Gauge, and its accompanying sitting room for my O-scale layout. On the main floor next to the master bedroom, I've pegged the second bedroom for my ladies boudoir/sitting room/guest room.  A second loft bedroom is for a guest bedroom. My husband looked at me one day, and asked me  "Can you tell me what rooms I get?". There is a library room, so he has that. As long as his pool table can fit in the house, and his baby grand piano can fit in the house- (and they both can) he's good with it all! He gets the two car garage too.

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