One photo Tells a 100 stories 2 different angles is 100% better

Is there any chance of you taking a couple of photos of the area :

(1) looking down the length of the wall with your camera as close to the wall as possible and aimed to the left or right showing the length of the room and what the knee wall looks like when looking down from end to end.

(2) looking at the wall in question straight from in front of it from approximately the center of room  showing floor to ceiling and place a yard stick or 36-48 inch piece of wood standing on end leaning up against the wall. make sure to let us know the length of the stick.

With these two photos we can give you much better advice.

Dan

I'm thinking sky.

How high will the layout be built?  If the layout is at or near 4 feet, then the back drop will be angling over the top of the layout at @ 45 degrees.  I would think that that would limit the back drop to sky. 

If the layout is built below the level of the roof angle, you will have a space of whatever the distance is between the layout height and the angle.  I don't think I would actually do a backdrop in that case.  If the layout is 40 inches and the straight wall is 48 inches, you only have 8 inches of vertical wall.  In that case I would use building flats in any city area, and either trees, or small hillocks, or a combination of both for the backdrop and paint everything that angles over the top sky.

sky back

whoa!  you gents are fast.  right now it's attic space which I'm clearing out.  I'll try and finish then attach a photo or drawing.  I'm flexible about layout height but perhaps a base level of about 4 feet.  high mountains and deep canyons perhaps going much lower with the scenery.  Yes, I'm concerned about angling over the top of the scene, particularly with the potential to create pesky and distracting shadows against the backdrop.

If I paint sky on the backdrop, is there a way to include clouds or hills with the proper (adjusted for angling in) perspective?

Back Drop

I am in agreement of painting sky only.  I would also make a mix of 50 / 50 light and medium shades and the same for the dark and medium shade.  Make sure that you blend in the colors as you go.  4” brush works great for this.

Following Along

I'm following this discussion with interest as my only possible area for a layout has the same sort of configuration with roughly a 4' wall and then sloped ceilings to a flat, as described by the OP.

It was always my thought to only paint sky color on the slopes.

ideas

I'm of a similar opinion as Blue:  sky color on the slope.  I think I'd use a fairly light non-distracting flat sky blue.   On the vertical walls, you might want to peruse Charley's blog.  He has some interesting approaches to what works for a background.  You're so involved with looking at the foreground, the backgrounds seem to work.  It's here:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/1890

+ +

Sky blue and clouds...  Use the slope to your advantage. The slope can add depth for the clouds, forced perspective.   Might not be as simple as it sounds in my head.

Or tell everyone your layout is based on a fictional premise;  speed of light railroading, where background seems to angle inward becasue of the speed.  Just a thought,  a dumb one mind you.

Marc Fournier, Quebec

Nobody's suggested the

Nobody's suggested the obvious!  Now, this may go against the grain some, but what about holding the benchwork off away from the kneewall.  If your benchwork started say 24" from the kneewall, then the backdrop could go vertical till about 6 foot high or so (eye level).  I realize that this would make the effective room width 10 feet instead of 14, and that may not be an option, especially if you desire a center peninsula.  I can think of some arguments for holding the benchwork off 24 inches:  1) You get to have a normal vertical backdrop that goes to approx eye level. 2) you could cove the backdrop as it transitions from vertical to the roof rake (angle).  3) The extra two feet of "dead" space could be used as a chase for layout wiring, or for limited hidden trackage and/or staging.  If you kept the staging to say 4 tracks or less, it should be accessable for maintenance albeit not too comfortably. 

I have a similar bonus room, and though my layout is in the basement of our house, I did consider the bonus room prior to layout construction, and pondered on these scenarios your dealing with now.

Here's the room more or less

Here's the room more or less cleared out and ready for design and construction.  Thank you all for your thoughtful comments.  You can see why the in-sloping wall could pose a problem for the creation of a world in miniature.  I like using various shades of blue (light to dark) to image the sky.  I may also bring the higher topo scenes in away from the wall closer to the center of the room.  Still thinking about it.

dormers

Also, there are 3 dormers on the left side.

Few things come to mind ...

John:

A few things come to mind when looking at your room photo.

1. You probably want the zero level of the layout deck low enough you get the full width of the room. This means you need to resign yourself to having more of a helicopter view of the layout.

2. You probably do not want to do a double-decked layout in this room because you would have to bring the upper deck out over the lower deck and you would not be able to see the lower deck in that case.

3. You could do a backdrop that curves up over the layout - not necessarily a bad thing. I'd look into using 0.060 styrene for the backdrop since it would curve easily and you could create tight joints you could hide with just a little sanding.

Rooms like that make things difficult

When we moved into the house w are living in back in 1982, they second level looked like the one you show in the picture. It brough back memories because that used to be my model building room and it was great for that. However, it would not have been good for model railroading since the sides that were vertical ahd been turned into storage areas with doors that made them into closets. Good for storage but not much else.

In 1987 we lifer the roof and turned what had been two rooms into four nice sized rooms which became an office for me and three bedrooms. I still have my office, and my three sons lived up here until they got married. so we still have three bedrooms up here that are now empty. My wife and I slept downstairs where we have two more bedrooms on the main level. One of those is my wife's office.

So where is my train room? in thre basement of course. I don't have rigts to the whole basement however and I never had because that was ruled out by the Secretary of the Interior (AKA teh she who must be obeyed) even before we actually bought the place back in 1982. The train room is located in the rear part of the basement next to the laundry/boiler room. the rest of the basement is supposed to be a family room but its full of stuff that has to be sold off or thrown out one of these days. That would have made great place to build a model railroad but unless I want to get a divorce it just isn't going to happen.

Irv

That space is kind of narrow.

The first thought that occured to me is that you could not have room for an sort of peninsula on a layout in that room without compromising aisle width, but you might be able to go with a wider benchwork.  If you went 3 feet wide, you would still have a nice wide aisle, but you would need to have rails set into the ceiling for hand holds to allow you to reach the back.  If the handholds are made of wood, closet rods perhaps, you could paint them to blend in with the sky, and they would probably not even be noticeable.  You could avoid the "helicopter view" by doing your operation sitting in an office chair and following your train by rolling around.  To do that you would want some sort of hard smooth floor, like hardwood, composite, or linoleum tile.  You would not want carpet if you are going to try to roll around on an office chair.

You mentioned some dormer windows, how wide and deep are the dormers?  The final question is where is the stair access to that attic?

I'd still aim for narrow benchwork

I'd still aim for narrow benchwork. You can do so much more in a room with shelves in the 12" to 18" range and all you are really cutting out in many cases is scenery. Having less scenery to build isn't a problem in most cases!

The only time you might need some extra width is at a yard location. But even then, you should keep it to 24" or 30" if you must. Putting track you can't reach on the layout will be a major mainteinance pain if there's any turnouts that are at extreme reach.

thanks for your thoughtful

thanks for your thoughtful replies.  I would not envision a doubledeck layout.  I like the idea of a curved backdrop curving primarily in the upper portion peaking at the 9 ft ceiling.  Assume a curving front with a cove(s) and broad reaches into the room extending from the right wall into the room say 9 ft max.  Small peninsula as you come into the room with access both left and right.  perhaps roundhouse/staging yard.  in deeper parts, the scenery would dominate.  I share Pelle Soeborg's philosophy of scenery dominance and am moved by John Allen's work. 

Tallest peak furthest back with rolling hills leading to the staging area.  Just my personal taste, but I much prefer more space/scenery  in front of the trackwork in order to create a more immersive environment.  Again, just my taste, but not so much in favor of narrow bench layouts.  This would require some creative thought as to access with removable scenery from hidden hatches.

Realistic operation with turn of the century logging and mining.  HO scale HOn3 gauge.  Keep curves as broad as possible.  While my friends are trying to persuade me about the beauty of On30, I fear the dominance of a few large structures (lumber mill and mining mill and camp) would minimize the simpler elements of scenery.

keep up the good thoughts.  Good stuff and I appreciate it.

You can do deep benchwork, if you do back ground

scenery first.  I'm sitting in an office chair as I type this.  I'm 6 feet tall with a 32 inch inseam.  My office chair extends from my knees to the edge of the adjuster knob on the seat back 30".  If you put any tracks more than 30 inches from the front of the bench work, you will have problems with reaching in to rerail equipment.  The 30 inch reach will only work if the trains are at waist height when you are standing, and I think you will need some sort of handhold to keep from falling into the layout when reaching the back of it.  You could do back ground scenery to give yourself the massive scenery to trains look if you keep the tracks to the foreground and limit how far in you would need to reach.  The biggest issue there is that I'm not sure how often you will need to clean up and do maintanence on the scenery.  In addition you will need to watch out for aisle width.  If you want to use an office chair for a closer to eye level view of the layout rather than always operating from a "helicopter," then you will need to make the aisles more generous.  I think a 24 inch aisle would be the minimum for stand up, walk around operation and that would get tight for more than one person.  If you do sit down, roll around operation to get a better viewing angle of the railroad, I think you will need 4 foot minimum aisle width.  I think the biggest problem for model railroaders is designing a railroad to fit your space rather than trying to force the railroad you want into your available space. 

Another possibility that you might not have considered is a central peninsula layout 4 feet wide by 10 feet long with a vertical back drop running down the center.  The layout could then be built at a higher elevation and you could standup and walk around the outside to operate.  If it was designed as a point to point without crossing the backdrop at one end, you could probably go 12 feet long, presuming it would fit without causing the stair well to be a hazzard.

In a room 10' wide, if your benchwork is only 18 inches wide and the railroad running down both sides with a central peninsula, you will have room for a 33 inch aisle on each side of the peninsula.  Measure in 18 inches from the wall, how much head room do you have?  I don't think 33" will allow you to operate sitting in an office chair.

After looking at your photo

After looking at your photo of the train attic room and you thinking HO-HOn3 you can use the basic table top for your railroad with an 18in wide table running down the non dormer side with 4ft X 8ft or 7-1/2 foot Tables shooting out from the 18 in table along the one wall of the room. This will give you high backdrops on each of the 4 X 9  tables and just run a blue sky back drop along the 40 foot wall and with this you can build a nice mountain railroad with logging or mining operations and at the same time have plenty of walk space and one side of the room open for viewing visitors and with 4 ft between each table you have all the operating room need and lots or room for track work. I hope my drawing shows up below.

This is one way to use the space and you can use this as a starting point or what ever you think will work but with the ceiling being a major problem I thought this might work. HO-HOn3 would work great in this area you can change the width of the tables by making eack 5 foot wide and having a center back drop on each one for 30 inch wide sides.

I hope this gives you something as a starting point anyway. Sorry I drew this with pencil and paper as I don't use CAD to do my drawing and this is just a basic outline to give you another look from what has been stated already.

Dan

Single peninsula option

I like how Dan's suggestion utilizes the space, and have an alternate suggestion that builds on it.  How about running a shelf along the wall opposite the dormers, and having a long center peninsula, leaving an aisle toward the dormers?  Essentially this is the same as Dan's idea, just changing from several short peninsulas to a single long one.  This way, you only have one backdrop against the sloping wall, and the remaining backdrop can be builit into the center of the peninsula, thus eliminating the problem of building scenery under the roof slope.  Sometimes the best use of space in the train room isn't to have the benchwork against the outside wall.

Slanted wall

Hi guy, I would use some of that 14 feet and build a back drop enough to have at least a 24 inch stright back drop.That way you have enough to build detail and still paint the sealing sky blue. I think you can get 24 inches and use up just a little space, and get rid of a big headache. Good luck, i wish i had that much area to build a layout BAYOUMAN

I'm with Rob

Slanted Ceilings

When I was growing up, my bedroom at my dad's house was over the 3car garage and was totally open. I can't tell you how many nights I laid awake trying to figure out how to build a layout in that room! The ceilings on two sides angled in but the stub wall was probably only 3 feet off the ground and the ceiling was only 7'.

In looking at your set-up; what about running the layout down the middle of the room with a blob (or 2) at the end. Then you could have your staging yards along the side walls and maybe a branch along the wall as well. With a 9' ceiling height you could even do a multilevel layout and still have plenty of "air space". In addition, this would take care of your backdrop issues and give you a natural view block. I know that Island layouts are totally passe and around the walls are all the rage these days, but in your unique situation, an island with extensions to the side walls may be your best use of available space.  

Joe is right in modern Main

Joe is right in modern Main Line Railroading but that's not what he said he was building

So joe I would go along with you if he wanted to build the SP in the 1970-80 era But, if he wants to build a mountain railroad in the turn of the century then the 4 X 9 Blurbs as you call them would fit what he was asking for and seems he  wants a RR for logging and minning in the turn of the century HO-HOn3 and the Blurb railroad is exactally what would work for what he asked for. The HOn3 RR is much different than Main Line modeling as in California to Colorado Narrow Gauge the main reason for HOn3 is Blurb Mountain sharp turns in and out of Valleys aroun tight curves and tight canyons and the large Island type railroad is not called for.

Dan

i have a similar space

My layout is in my bonus room over my garage 12x30 i have more of a helicpter ttype view and i think it worked out ok. here is a link to my blog for pictures

http://timpanookeeandneborr.blogspot.com/2009/04/walthers-modular-kits.html

Another consideration with a lumber or mining railroad,

is that you would not have a lot of turn back curves on those blobs Dan suggested.  I think a lot of mountain mining or logging railroads would possibly have a small "armstrong" type turn table to turn the loco, or they would not bother and just use a run around track and come back out of the blob with the loco on the front running in reverse.  For the same reason they would use switch backs to gain elevation instead of mainline type long curves and loops.  Certainly in Colorado, there are prototypes for almost everything, but a logging or mining narrow gauge railroad would use what ever worked to get to the lumber or the ore.