From the humblest of beginnings........The Shack!

As you can see from the photo, this small world of my model railroading empire is aptly called "The Shack". Since all the rooms of the house is taken up by one person or another and the garage is more for the storage of cars, bikes, tools and the like, I am delegated to this small 10'X12' building that has become my escape from the hustle and bustle of the daily drag of this journey called life. It has been a long time in coming, almost two years to be exact from when the idea was implanted into my brain by one of my best friends who had built one along with his son a few years back. This "Shack" started out as nothing more than a storage shed for lawn mowers, tools, yard tools, and anything that wasn't needed daily by being in the garage. It started out as an uninsulated, unheated, non air conditioned shack to something now that can stand the rigors of 105 degree days and still keep me quite cool. Since we haven't really had a "winter" in the past two years I haven't been able to find out just how well the heat works but I am sure it is ready if needed. Anyway, I digress. Let's get back to the beginnings and show you where I began.

As you can see from one of the beginning photos, this shack had no insulation, no sheet rock, nothing that would be considered creature comforts. The lights hung on chains from the ceiling and were only a foot above my head when standing under them. The wood you see on the wall was my first idea of what I was going to do with the walls but that changed as time progressed. I decided that if I was going to be in there for any length of time other than the fall or spring months then the place was going to need to be insulated along with heat and air. Thus the divergence from the path I was on. I decided before I went any further I needed to do some insulation and change over to using sheet rock. Of course, by this time I had framed the layout so it was either tear it out or insulate and sheet rock everything above the framing. In hind sight it would have been better had I thought everything out and had ripped all out and did a full insulation and sheet rock job. So much for that thought. Still, all in all, the atmosphere in there is better than I expected.

Here you can see where I had built the framing and started insulating about the layout and sheet rocking above it. I would continue this on up into the rafters but as you can see the bottom section below the layout remains uninsulated and no sheet rock. For now it will do but look at doing the bottom section farther down the road.

While this particular blog is not about the framing of the layout, per se, I did want to give an idea of where it is headed. This is the final paint on the sheet rock and part of the shelves I built into the framing. I plan on using curtains, skirts, you name it on rods to hide the lower portion when not in use. Still, overall I am liking the looks of how this is coming along. I must admit though, there were times where I almost stopped and said no mas. With putting a son through college while trying to keep any loans almost non existent, this hobby of mine takes a back burner when it comes to funding. Needless to say, it seemed at times that I was making no progress, that nothing was being done or I couldn't gather up the materials quickly and abundantly enough to go out and do anything.........and this is just getting the physical building ready! Had I been framing this in the house there is no telling where I would be with this layout but I can guarantee it would much more of an operating layout than it is right now.

Then began the ceiling construction. As you can see from this photo, because of the way the rafters are in this building and because of height restrictions, I could not do a flat ceiling. Also because of the center rafters that tie in the rafters coming from the wall are straight, it created a three angle ceiling to deal with. Still, overall I am happy with the way it turned out. I was worried that it was going to make the room feel more closed in, more claustrophobic but it has actually seemed to make the room look bigger than it is inside. I put insulation up between the rafters and then put the sheet rock up. I did most of it myself but did have some help with the longer pieces as it was hard to hold two ends up while drilling sheet rock screws in. As someone had told me when I started this hobby, I would be learning a good bit more than just modeling trains. Needless to say, I didn't know I would be gaining experience putting up sheet rock and mudding it in.


 This a view from one end of the shack to the other. As you can see, the ceiling is done and painted. I thought I had a photo of the lights that I had installed but apparently I don't. I flush mounted two four foot long energy efficient T8 lights in with "daylight" bulbs to give me as much "natural" light as possible. I have them connected to a switch at the door and can turn them off easily instead of having to pull two strings all the time to cut them on and off.




Well, for now that ends the tour of the "Shack". I have other pictures that I will post in a later blog showing the actual buildup of the layout framing itself. Just wanted to give a general view of where I started from as to the building itself. I haven't shown the heat or the air unit but I think this gives you a general idea as to where this is going. More to follow.