After doing additonal reading on garage layouts and people’s experiences with the multitude of things you need to do to  combat the elements, you can’t help but to think of one thing… What a pain in the ass!

So I pitched an idea to the wife and she’s okay’d to let me keep the layout in the current room, along with making it a guest room.  The plan would be to place the guest bed on the West wall of the room (the wall with the doors), the layout would occupy only the East wall (the longest wall where most of the layout is now), and my computer desk would remain where it is on the South wall.

While the layout could be cut by nearly 75%, I feel it’s a much better alternative to building in the garage.  I would also be able to utilize the existing shelving benchwork  mounted to the wall, though I would extend it from 15″ to 24″.  The plywood tops could all be recycled as well.

I’ve been doodling on a simple, single level plan, though I have thought about keeping the double deck since I have already have the helix.  I’ll have to see what I can come up with though.

Shaun Previous Layout

I’ve been doing a lot of reading online last night and today to see what other people’s experiences have been with building in their garage. Some hated it, some are ok, and some have had zero problems. It seems it all comes down to your location and your garage setup in regards to how your layout combats three main enemies of a garage layout: Dust, Cold, and Heat.

So what do I have?

• I’m located in Houston, TX. Our average high in the summer is 93° and our average low in the winter is 43° (source: MSN Weather).
• No A/C or Heat
• One Exterior Wall, Two Interior Walls (with insulation), One double garage door. Ceiling has no insulation in attic space above.
• Walls and ceiling are finished with drywall.

I then began thinking how I would tackle each of these three culprits.

Dust

The biggest source of dust in your garage is the concrete floor itself. Concrete is just naturally dusty. Everytime you walk on it, move stuff on it, etc.. you kick up dust. So to virtually eliminate that source of dust I plan to seal the floor with RustOleum’s Garage Floor Coating.

To deal with the 2nd source of dust and dirst, outside, I plan to add weather stripping to the garage door. This will include:

• A Garage Door Storm Shield Threshold
• Exterior vinyl weather stripping along the side and top of the garage door

A HEPA Air purifier near the layout is also recommended as just another way to keep the dust levels down.

Cold/Heat:

The garage has no connection to the Central A/C unit, nor does it have windows, so a window unit is out.  So the first thing I’ll do is install some insulating material on the garage door itself.

With winter approaching, I’ll be looking into some space heaters that could be used to bring the layout area to a comfortable temperature.  I came across these Edenpure ones that look interesting.  Carpeting would be placed in the main aisle as well to keep the feet comfy from the cold, hard floor.

To cool the garage in the summer, I have seen several varieties of portable A/C units that could be used.  I’m still researching this.

Another option I’ve seen discussed is to build a mini room in the garage itself. Basically some simple wall frames with insulation material. You can complete it with a roof and small a/c unit even to basically totally enclose the layout. This would be the optimal situation as you’ll be sealing the layout from any outside elements. I’d really have to see how much cost would be involved in such a task.  I was actually thinking of enclosing the layout somewhat using tall backdrops as the “walls” and then perhaps a removable tarp of some sort as the a “ceiling” that can enclose the layout top when it’s not in use.

Shaun Previous Layout

It’s been 10 days since since I started my little hiatus from working on the layout. It was nice little break from the layout and I took the opportunity to work other non-railroad projects I’ve been putting off doing.

There’s also been some reflection on the layout. During my time-off, I was also able to really think about the layout (mainly at work, heh). I thought about what my goals are for it, what issues it has, how many things were built so they “sorta worked”, and what things I would do differently. When I think to myself, “Was it that I really want to get out of my layout?”, I usually just want to railfan the layout; Someplace where I can go and just watch trains run. I’m never going to have op sessions with others, and I’m not really into switching (not yet at least) either. I think I really just want a (almost) “roundy-round” with a few industries for future operational switching. Something that I could turn on, and just let run if I wanted.

During all of this (and previously), the wife and I talked about the usage of the house and the space we have, as we’d like to have a 2nd baby and we only have 3 BR’s (1 being a guest room we’d like to keep). In short, instead of buying a house, utilizing the office/layout room as the guest bedroom would be the most cost effective measure for us.

So I’ve been pondering the idea of removing current layout and starting fresh with a new 16×7 layout in one half of the garage (picture a rectangle with a 28″ aisle down the middle).

While I know it’s certainly a *huge* change after spending nearly 2 years on the current layout, I feel like I could now build a layout more to how I really want. No crazy staging elevators, no cassettes, no helix, no double decks, etc… A more “traditional” kind of layout.

So needless to say, all work on the current layout is now on hold while this new layout is researched.

Shaun Previous Layout

I think my brain has experienced an overload of railroading. Let me explain.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been plowing ahead with constructing staging, building the lift, installing the new cabinets, doing track work, wiring staging turnouts, installed tortoise and wiring, installed feeders, and put down scenery.  I’ve also been in this “I can’t stop thinking about the layout mode” where it seems like I’m brainstorming a hundred different ideas for a hundred parts of the layout all day, every day.

This evening I put down some scenery, followed by gluing down some cork roadbed, and sorta had this “what should I do next? how about this? how about that? or this.. or this…”.  It’s like I just couldn’t make a decision on what I wanted to do.

In other words, tonight I hit that burnout phase like a ton of bricks.  You may have had the same moment before where you have so many things on the to-do list but you almost just feel overwhelmed about it all.  So tonight, I’m taking a step back from the layout for a days to let the brain recover, let ideas simmer for awhile, and start afresh soon.

Since I’m planning on not doing anything layout related for the weekend at a minimum, I took a few minutes tonight to record a sorta flyover-ish video of the layout. Nothing exciting, but gives you a look at how things are going.

Hope you enjoy, and see ya soon.

Shaun Previous Layout