Room Construction

Roughly a third of my basement will be dedicated to the train room. The room is roughly 22 feet by 18 feet, with a few obstacles. I have a furnace, water heater, ejector pump, and a support pole to work around, but overall there is more than enough room to make what I hope will be a beautiful layout. As is the case with all model railroaders, no matter how much space you have, you could always use more. Here is a rough overview of the space that will be used for my layout.

Construction on the basement began around a month ago. I am not an expert carpenter, and have never done any framing before, but it is fun work. When I purchased my house my dad applied a seal to the concrete floor, which I highly recommend. Concrete creates dust, even if you don't walk on it. If you seal your floor, it prevents this, which prevents the dust from being sucked into your furnace, and blown into your house. The seal also gives the concrete a shiny finish. Currently the framing is about 65% complete. Here are a few pictures of the current progress as of today.

The pictures make the space look smaller than it really is. The final picture shows an O-72 template on the ground. After framing is complete the next step will be to spray a bug-proofing agent on the concrete walls, then installation of electrical and insulation. So far on this project I have spent less than $200, and that included all lumber (about 60 studs, 9 12 foot 2X4s, and 9 12 foot treated 2X4s), screws, and nails.