Frisco:

It's always great to see people when people get started on their layout projects - the room prep for my Siskiyou Line took me some 3 months. I had to knock out a wall, put in a wall, seal the garage door shut and back it with a semi-permanent wall. Then I had an electrician come in and add a new subpanel for the layout room, and I added wiring to new outlets and a series of 5 switches to turn all the lighting and layout room power on and off.

Once the first stick of benchwork went in, boy was I excited! We bought the house in February of 1991, and while the room prep was underway, I finished the layout planning. Finally, in May of 1991 the actual layout construction started!

As to layout lighting, I've come to the conclusion that installing ordinary light sockets (as in the screw in type) gives you the most flexibility - in my case I use some special small porcelain fixtures every 2 feet along the valance. By using the normal screw sockets, you can use incandescent or the new compact florescent (CFLs) bulbs.

One major advantage of the CFLs is they're available in most any color temperature range (2700K - 6500K) so you can get whatever light temperature appeals to you. You can also get dimmable CFLs, although they're kind of pricey and even at their dimmest setting, they still look rather bright to the naked eye - but at least they're dimmable! The other big plus with CFLs is they run cool and take about 15-25% the wattage per lumen output than tungsten bulbs do.

My favorite place to shop for CFLs is online at 1000bulbs.com. They have more bulb types than you can imagine!

Great to hear a new layout is taking shape! It took me 4 months to get my train room ready for installing tracks.

I had to dismantle the old layout, clean up the mess and finally re-arrange most of the benchwork - which I was able to save!

Is there a link yet to the room ?  If so, it's not obvious to see.

Jeff,

No link to my new layout room yet. I haven't even taken any photos yet. I forgot to take before photos but will be taking some in progress photos soon. I do have some photos of the area last year and might be able to use them for a refrence of sorts.

Denny,

I'm very excited about getting started. I hope to have some trains running by Oct. or Nov. Although there is still alot to do yet it doesn't take me very long to do all the carpenter work. I was unable to save any of the benchwork from the previous layout so everthing will be new. This will be my second layout in as many years. The one I built last year was just a test bed layout and I learned alot about what I want and what not to do and materials not to use. Plus the new layout will be quite abit larger.

What did you decide to do for the ceiling?

Chris

Two words:

Track Lighting.

They are really simple to put up, and once up you can move them around as much as you want.  My last set was like 6 minature spotlights that I could throw around the room at a moment's notice.

It's a thought.

Benny

Chris,

There is a ceiling already in place. When the house was built they sheet rocked and textured the ceiling in the garage so all I have to do is fill the holes from the garage door and opener and paint it. I will get that painted as soon as I get all of the new sheetrock taped and mudded. I have to do some wiring before I can do that though, hopefully I can get that done Saturday.

Benny,

I still haven't decided on lighting for the layout yet. However, for the room I'm thinking can lights. For the layout track lighting might work but the ceiling is 9' 2'' high, so I might have to build valances like Joe has on his layout. When the benchwork starts taking shape I will decide what will look the best for the room and the layout.

Nice! That room is gonna look great!