Offer submitted. Rough sketch of the room area, based on counting ceiling tiles (I didn;t pull out a tape measure and actually measure the walls)
Going to be a challenge, irregular area, but I'm sure I will come up with something.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Randy!
Looks good! (I really like the bar!!)
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Looks good! (I really like the bar!!) - That should be 'Crew Lounge'!
Jim
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
"Crew Lounge"!
I stand corrected!
Looking promising! How moveable is the bar? At first glance, if it were in the upper left corner of Section 1, it would be easier to connect all your sections without a duckunder/gate or a narrow shelf over the bar. Wouldn't have to stagger around parts of the layout to find the stairs to fall up.
Have fun,
Richard
The bar is potentially movable, there are shelves behind it (bottom edge of the drawing) that are built in, but the bar itself could be moved. The thing is, there's a sink in the bar that's not hooked up, but just behind the wall to the right in the utility room, there is a water suypply and a drain. AND room for a Kegerator with the taps coming through that wall. For root beer, of course, no alcoholic beverages while operating the trains (right...). The option there might be to run the tracks around behind the bar. That would require a liftout across the doorway to the utility room. I definitely want to avoid any duckunders. Drop leaf or liftup is ok. Might need to go true double deck to get in what I want, in all my doodles assuming a square basement area, I had 2 levels but the lower was just for staging, the entire main run was all on a single deck.
Also, the laundry room is eceptionally large. There's a closit in it that is under the stairs, but seems a little cramped to build a dispatcher panel in there. I may be able to negotiate some space in there for staging. The "low walls" area actually does go floor to ceiling, but there are large openings with a roof sort of thing over them - I guess trying to make the bar area look like a wester saloon - in the middle are swinging doors! That likely will ALL come out, none of the walls in the basement are structural. It looks rather silly thee way it is all currently painted white, I'll get some pictures when I have my own.
Looks like other than possibly contingencies, it's mine. Seller countered but still below what I expected worst case, so I'm going to do it.
Cannot see it... Barracuda Web Filter says no dice.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
Congratulations on your potential new layout area with living space above!!
Before you tear out the non-structural walls, considder them (or parts) as a potential support for your layout. Some walls may have electrical outlets that can be used to power lighting, etc
Also set aside some space away from the layout for your shop tools. I assume you have or plan on getting a table saw or something similar. It's good to keep that dust maker away from the layout.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Congrat's Randy!
In this day and age of downsizing the Dispatcher could do double duty as a Bartender. That is making good use of the space.
Maybe you could turn the bar around and put it against the wall. An around the walls bar verses a free standing bar takes up less space. Here's mine.
Around the room type bar with Lazyboys.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Oh this is a full wraparound bar. L shaped, with a lift up section for the bartender to get in. Plus the built-in on one wall, and then the other blank wall. Probably sometime next week I will be in there with the home inspector and I can get some pictures of my own to post.
What reason is it giving? That's got to be a flaw in site classification, unless personal sites category is being blocked, it's just on my personal web site, which does not have any viruses or bad stuff on it, it has pictures of my layout under construction. And DCC decoder installs. And some links to places I like, like Wiring for DCC and Modeltrainstuff.
G Paine Congratulations on your potential new layout area with living space above!! Before you tear out the non-structural walls, considder them (or parts) as a potential support for your layout. Some walls may have electrical outlets that can be used to power lighting, etc Also set aside some space away from the layout for your shop tools. I assume you have or plan on getting a table saw or something similar. It's good to keep that dust maker away from the layout.
Garage is HUGE - I can almost park FOUR cars in it, two rows of 2, it's that deep, Plenty of room to have workspace outside of the living area. Plus with the door right there off the driveway that goes right into the basement, I can set up in the driveway and do all lumber cutting outside and then just carry in finished pieces.
Congrats, nice large space and sounds like great garage to work in. It is too bad the space is "odd" and cut up in the wrong ways for ease of around the wall. Bar is a bad spot, "crew lounge" needs to be placed to the right over toward garage opening up the entire right hand side for the layout. Lift or swing section can always be done at the mech access. At first seemed like an "odd' place for the mechanicals, but I assume that the furnace is using a seconary flue to what I see as a fireplace above that must be the living room.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Yes, there is one chimney, and indeed a firepalce just above the mechnical room. Which is just the boiler and water heater - the breaker box is out in the garage.
Moving the bar is definitely an option. I want no duckunders, but a lift up section (the ceilings are quite high, even with the drop ceiling installed. There is considerable clearance above the drop ceiling, too.
I was doodling around a bit (the measurements are pretty accurate, I measured more when I was there for the home inspection. So, better or worse, this is my space. I really don;t want to compromise on 30" radius curves, but with each area having a width of only 12 feet, that's going to chew up any chance of having two layout sections with a penninsula AND 3 foot aisles. It's looking like I will need to do a multi-deck layout to get everythign I want, so that means helix. I thought of a scroll sort of shape, unwinding one way in the top left room, crossing diagonally in the corner of the bar room, and then sprialing clockwise in the lower left room - leaving a 3 foot passage along the bottom edge to get fromt eh door to the bar, and a passage along the left side to get to the garage door, laundry room, and stairs. It would mean taking the long away around to get to the bar, but still, no duckunders. That's without moving the bar. However, in plopping some circles onthe plan to represent the turnbacks, there just isn't enough room.
Moving the bar may be best, but the thing is, where it sits right now, it has water hooked up for a sink, and there is a perfect space right on the other side of the wall in the mechanical room to install a Kegerator (for birch beer of course...) with taps on the wall between the mechanical room and bar. Moving the bar means no water, and no handy place for the kegerator.
Trying to think outside the box a bit with a combination of around the walls and freestanding benchwork. Open to any and all suggestions.
Givens: HO scale, mid 50's era, Reading flavor at least, DCC power, Code 83 rail, most likely Peco track.
Druthers: 30" mainly minimum radius, #8 turnouts on the main, continuous run option, incorporate at least one branch line as well as main line traffic, no duckunders.
Taking out walls is not a big deal, but make sure the kitchen and baths are not above those walls. That screams plumbing stack in it.
As for the bar, that laundry room has water and a drain in it as well. Kegerator??? That's the second time I've ever heard of one. The first was a couple weeks ago when I built a bar for a couple with one. Using standard base cabinets (they already had), I raised them 5 inches on a platform to fit the kegerator under the counter, but they had a wine cooler too. Fancy.
Can;t put the bar against the wall of the laundry - the door to it is right in the middle of that wall section.
No vertical pipes in those walls between the left side and the bar area - for one, it's right under the east side of the living room, and they are not full walls, they have large openings in them, with little roof like things built in to the upper part - I think they were trying to make it look like a western saloon sort of thing, what with the swinging doors in the middle of that. The horizontal wall below where it says 'stairs' is right down the middle of the house, under the main support beam, and inside that wall are any support columns. That wall would stay no matter what, wouldn;t buy me anything to remove it, might not seem that way from my quicky drawing, but the only thing it really does is maintain a hallway at the base of the stairs - the stairs from upstairs end in a small landing and then there are two more steps to either side (right and left in my drawing) to the actual basement floor level.
It's an awkward space, but so much else of the house is perfect. I managed here with a severely sloping ceiling, so I'm sure I can figure something out.
Randy, if you still want that bar, (sounds like a decent amenity for the "lounge"), I would just move it down the wall to the left toward the outside door. This opens up that entire rt hand side. I gather from your description that the stairs drop to a landing behind that stub wall and step off in both directions. You can close off the stairs dropping off into the room (upper right) allowing more continuous around the wall. If stairs/ hallway becomes too dark, cut down to half wall along the landing side. layout won't be going there. Now the stairs will drop to landing to access laundry door and head into "crew lounge area, garage and outside door, not messing w/ traffic flow.
The bar can still sport the operating sink. Run the water lines under benchwork along the wall. Use a small ejector (1 to 1 1/2 gal) discharge into PVC. An added check valve and mechanical vent will work fine. A wet bar sink get very little use, however you will still have the advantage of using it.
Now that got me thinking. Part of the problem with relocating the bar is that it is actually rather small, there is the bar part only along the top of the square plus a bit on the left side (which is diagonal but I was lazy in drawing), where the liftup is for the bartender to get behind it. On the right side there is nothing, just the wall of the utility room, and the back, bottom of the square, is shelves. So just sliding it tot he left would be a problem. HOWEVER - the horizontal wall below where it says stairs is not a half wall, that's a full wall. I could move the bar to the left AND rotate it 90 degrees. That would expose the back of the shelves behind the bar - but it would be one more surface to run benchwork against. Overall it looks like that would net avout 24 square feet in the space just to the left of those half walls where the saloon doors currently are, assuming leaving a 4 foor aisle along the front (bottom) from the door over to the utility room. Might not have to make it that big, the boiler unit is only about 3 feet square, and the water heater isn't anything huge either. Ideal would be to then move the doors to the utility room to the bottom where the bar is, then it's a straight shot along the wall to the front door. Problem is there are some pipes there that would have to be relocated. That would probably get me the most free space concentrated for the layout, allowing around the walls plus perhaps a penninusla that comes out diagonally fromt he upper right intot he middle of the open space. The laundry room is also insanely large - I'm working on getting at least a little of that space for staging.
BTW, are there any exposed lally columns? Looks that there would be one to the right of that stair/ landing partition. Others are/ should be buried within that stair wall.
They are all in that wall that is the horizontal line running under where it says "stairs"
You also say it has boiler heat. Where are the radiators in the basement? I'm guessing on the outside walls, but there will be water runs on each end.
Being it is a potential new house, one that you can modify, it might be good to take it from a standpoint of the fact there is nothing in the way to prevent modifications at this point. Plan the best area for the layout, then modify the bar to fit elsewhere, get the lighting for the layout figured out and any other electrical needs. Typically, older houses have limited outlets and lighting in the basement. It's easier to deal with that without a layout where you need to work.
It's not new, it was built in 1972. Not much I cna change at this point - though none of the walls in the basement are load bearing, so in th extreme it would be possible to rip it ALL out and repartition the space. Certin things will have to stay where they are - the basement bathroom, the laundry appliances, because that's where all the hookups are. The boiler and water heater will also need to stay where they are, but I could easily redo the walls to locate the door in a more favorable position. Would be nice not to have to do that, but it is an option to make better use of the space.
Thing is - how much would I gain? If I say, pushed the laundry room further to the left and made it smaller, that would open some space to the left of the stairs as well as under the stairs - not exactly prime space. I could leave things as they are and run the tracks through the wall into the laundry and put staging in there. Maybe even fiddle staging, since someone could sit in there and be isolated from the rest of the layout.
The heat is gas fired hot water, with 3 zones - the basement is its own zone, and the pipes run vertically in the stud walls around the perimeter and then across the ceiling joists up above the drop ceiling. Even the garage is heated - no more getting into a cold car (I only have on-street parking here).
Electrically, the panel has room for about 6 more circuits. Since the basement is drop celiling, it wouldn't be too hard to run additional circuits as needed. Though there are plenty of outlets around the basement area.