What to do? My room is getting full!

Time to build into the next room, or get a bigger room. 

When the shoe box is full it is full. Time for a larger room.

   Bill

I know folks don't like to hear this, but eventually there's a saturation point.  It may be time to start de-accessing stuff.

Rusty

You're close enough to me, let me solve that problem for you.  I'll be out with a truck as soon as I can get going, have the stuff that won't fit ready to load!

Rusty Traque posted:

I know folks don't like to hear this, but eventually there's a saturation point.  It may be time to start de-accessing stuff.

Rusty

I don't like hearing that. Everyone tells me I have too much stuff.

I showed them, I bought a bigger house.

Since I like steam era and modern diesel's, I just change once a year.  Right now I'm in diesel mode, so all steam era trains, buildings, vehicles, are put away in storage carts. This winter I'll change and put all the intermodal, SD-40's, Amtrak, new vehicles and modern buildings away, then go back to steam era  Top half of my remote is steam, bottom is Diesel.  Two layouts in the space of one.

I though about switching to G, but a real local G pro looked at my space and said, "Nah, forget it."

Build UP.  its time for an elevated loop or loops?  Staying on one level can be limiting.  Trackage on multiple levels adds alot of interest too...

I am more selective in my acquisitions.

Mark

My suggestions:

Get a bigger space.

Thin the herd.

Start being very selective about what you buy.

Get rid of something everytime you buy something on a cubic inch basis.

Get out of trains and find a new hobby.

Give your stuff to local kids.

Give your stuff to GRJ.  He now has some extra room.

It is possible that you have enough.

I started with an attic layout. Soon I out grew it. I was trying to pack twenty pounds of meat into a ten pound bag LOL. I then went to the basement and started a new layout down there for the overflow. I haven't finish that layout and I am looking into another area for the overflow there. J DADDY and SUPER O BOB have great suggestions. If you can't build up and you have adjoining rooms that you can cut an opening to and continue the layout that is an option. Also what about a ceiling layout...................Paul

Time to bite the bullet and Add On. It really can be worth it. I could give you my contractor's name, but you probably have one closer....

No, I have no basement; this is the Sunbelt, for Pete's sake. There is one large, full basement in the neighborhood, but the guy is not a model RR'er, so what he could need it for is beyond me.

He just added 12'X15' to my backyard shop. It will be my workshop area, and the original 12'X24' will be for the layout (and tidy under-layout storage) only. I was doing everything in one room, packed in, and enjoying it less and less.

Just finished; 12'X15' addition (the "locomotive works") on the left; the original on the right (the "layout wing", now) needs washing, but that will be done at the time I have some repairs done on the actual house siding. The plastic storage building is not new, just "re-foundationed" and turned 90 degrees.

Note the beautiful (yikes!) azaleas on the right. Southern Living magazine eat your heart out. The door on the right is unused (there's now a layout in the way...), because when I had this built in 89 - 90 or so, I thought surely 2/3 of the building would be model RR'ing and 1/3 lawn mower, tools and stuff. There was an end door for that. How much RR could I possibly need, after all?

Now, that plastic storage building contains the "lawn mower, tools and stuff", of course.

It's a good thing that my lot isn't bigger, and more importantly, that construction isn't cheap.

(As an aside, you see, not every native Alabamian thinks about football. Ever.) 

Michael Hokkanen posted:

 Have any of you come up with clever time consuming projects to enhance your train rooms? 

Pretty simple - sell off everything that there's no room for on the layout and enjoy a less cluttered, step over stuff, have so much stuff that you can't find 1/2 of it in time of real need existence.

If, like me, you can't go in or out, you go up.

Jerry

JerryG posted:

If, like me, you can't go in or out, you go up.

Jerry

There you go!

aussteve posted:

My suggestions:

Get a bigger space.

Thin the herd.

Start being very selective about what you buy.

Get rid of something everytime you buy something on a cubic inch basis.

Get out of trains and find a new hobby.

Give your stuff to local kids.

Give your stuff to GRJ.  He now has some extra room.

It is possible that you have enough.

These are all good suggestions that cover every possibility.  Pick and choose any, some or ALL the above.

Only half of my large basement is finished and available for trains/layouts. I completed a 12'-by-8' layout in 2004 which occupies one side of the basement. Now, I'm almost finished with a transportable 10'-by-5' layout on the other side. No further room downstairs except for a possible small expansion of the smaller layout. I enjoy running trains but my main interest is in layout/structures/scenery design and construction. I've been contemplating this situation for a while and am still mulling over my next move... The wife says no trains in the living room...

MELGAR

Around the ceiling shelf layout. 

Raising:  **** good idea!

jerry

Radical solution: get divorced, then you wife gets half the trains. 

There is a law that states "the stuff will multiply to fill the space available".

This law has been proved by me and millions of others.  So expanding the space is futile.  Come up with a strategy that will solve the space problem.  An answer or answers are in the prior posts.

Charlie

MELGAR posted:

... The wife says no trains in the living room...

MELGAR

That leaves a kitchen, bathroom and dining room up for grabs! 

Tom 

You need a new hobby. My 2,300 vintage View-Master 3-D reels fit nicely in 2 dresser drawers. 21 cap guns in holsters take up a little wall space. 18 sand pails use 2 shelves...and so on. 

Perhaps you could add a level underneath your present layout. I built my layout 4 feet above the floor, and have another level about 4 inches above the floor. The three feet between the two levels leaves plenty of room to work on and view the lower level. The only drawback so far is my reduced dexterity due to old age. 

Paul Goodness

Best thing to do is to tunnel through the wall. Trains should go places. Great dramatic effect when your trains are running to see them leave the room, run through a different room and then return to the original room.

Here is a short video showing trains leaving the room, and then returning, through a tunnel in the wall: