Hindsight

I added a floor above some horse stalls that created a similar bonus room. The side walls are only 4’ tall but the roof slopes steeply @ 7:12. Has I been smart, it would have made more sense to build a wall four feet out from the low spots and used that area for storage. Yes, the room would be smaller but the challenges would have been easier to overcome. 

The dedicated space for trains is a plus and bedrooms have other issues (closets and windows) that really make them better suited for home offices or the spare bedroom. The bonus room does not make a good bedroom. Ch  I out Bill Brillinger’s blog on building his layout in a similar space. 

My wife is also an attorney and works from home in a former bedroom. She is happy for the light. 

Legal ramifications aside,

Legal ramifications aside, there have been many layouts built in similar spaces. Depending on the width of the room moving in toward the center until you have a height of 5 feet from the floor to the ceiling will let you build at 36 inches from the floor. You would have a 2 foot back drop height and could easily operate from an office chair.

If the room is still wide enough for a peninsula you might do a two level in the middle of the room if you want. If not or if you decide around the walls is plenty you can have a nice layout that is easy to reach.

thoughts or insights?

   I'd figure out which space is best for the wife's office then build the layout in whatever space is left. The sloping space in an attic can be handy for storage if some perimeter walls and doors are added. I'd aim for at least 48 inches tall for any benchwork and see how much area that would leave in the attic if that becomes the layout room. Lower down benchwork is hard on the back when bent over working on it, and gives a toy train like view when standing up straight. Building it even lower and working from a chair might work , especially if one enjoys dinner at Japanese restaurants, but I don't think I'd want to do all my layout construction sitting down. ....DaveB

The Patch

You might want to look at what Keith Jordan achieved in a similar space:

http://www.patchrailroad.net/The_Patch/Patch_Home.html

Renting...

Since you said you were renting, are you planning a long term rental, or just until you can find a permanent home?  If this will be a short term rental, this may be more of a chainsaw layout until you are in new quarters.  It might make sense to build an island-type layout and limit attachments to the walls that will need to be repaired when you vacate the house, thus limiting the hit to your security deposit.  You could design an island such that you had a view block along the spine of the layout, you could later cut the layout in half for an around the walls shelf in a new location.  Consider Byron Henderson's 'Switchman's Dream' (http://mrsvc.blogspot.com/2008/09/westcotts-switchmans-nightmare.html) in an elongated version, perhaps?  The turn back curve could be sacrificed in a relocation to start a shelf layout in a new home.

If you are planning a long term rental, this may not be as much of a concern. 

I had a similar situation

I had a similar situation about 7 years ago. 

I went with a giant island in the middle. It was basically a 6x12 loop but set up with a backdrop in the middle like a shelf layout. 

Because it was a rental, I went with overkill and covered the entire floor with a thick paint drop cloth. Benchwork as Ikea "Ivar". 

Because I new I would have to move it, I underbuilt the layout itself with 1x2s, foam and 1/8" plywood to save weight.. That was a mistake , so it all went into the trash. 

Bonus room layout

Lou Sassi, the well-known model railroad writer and photographer, created an island On30 layout in a similar space when he retired to North Carolina.  It is fully moveable in case of another relocation.

So it's a thing.

Check the model railroad indexes and Duck Duck Go* for words and pictures of his layout. There are lots of them out there.

__________

*Duck Duck Go is a search engine that does not track your online activity, unlike G_ogle.  It is my default Safari search engine and works well.  No, I don't own stock or work for the company or know any of the founders or owners.  G_oogle has richer photo and map features.

Bonus room carpet.

I went to a carpet store and found out how to take out the capet. then I trashed the pad. I rolled up the carpet ,put it in a sleeve and suspended it from the garage ceiling. When the time comes to move I call the carpet people to get me a new pad and reinstall the carpet. Now I have a railroad room on flakeboard subfloor and don't have to worry about spilling paint or glue and I don't need to figure out how to RR on a carpet. Now since I am backlogged dozens of kits I have started module #1.  TT, Roundhouse,Repair shop, Coaling Station, Sand house, Ash dump, Water tower. Module #2 will be the Rose Walsh smelter, Module #3 will be the ProPatria Mill, Module #4 will be the Comstock combination Mine . And If I really get bored I have 30 Tomalco Car kits ond dozens of other structure kits to build. The odds are slim that I will live long enough but that what Hon3 addiction is and I just got 2 more kits and 5 printed interiors for my unbuilt Labelle kits. Blayne in a NC rental.

I Can Speak To This

I moved from Kirkland, WA, where I had a 14x24 layout room, plus a separate model building work area, plus a crew lounge, to Mount Vernon, WA, where I now have a bonus room above the garage.  The room is 12x22, but that is a bit misleading, as one wall is 22 feet long, but the opposite is 12 feet, due to the closet.  And the pony walls are 4 feet tall.

I should have really thought this out before signing on the dotted line, as the room presented way more problems than I anticipated, with those short walls and sloped ceiling.  But my wife really liked the house (I do too) and it does have a great view.  So it is what it is. 

I should add that this room also had to accommodate my modeling workbench, which I made sort of "U" shaped so I can work at one side, and paint at the other.

My first attempt in that new room was to build an around the wall layout at 36" high, leaving me a foot for a backdrop.  I figured, like mentioned above, that I could operate from a rolling chair (I should add that we ripped out the carpet and installed Pergo (or something like that) simulated hardwood flooring).  Maybe one can operate from a rolling chair, but building a layout from a chair doesn't work, so there was a lot of bending over to work on it, and of course bonking my head on the sloped ceiling.

So I tore that effort out and rebuilt at 48", and moved the layout out from the wall about 15".  This gave me a much more acceptable height to work on the layout, and a taller backdrop.  I did put a 6" shelf against the wall behind the layout, and connected it to the main part of the layout on each end via a 24" radius curve.  So this gave me the option of continuous running.

I should also mention that the layout is, notwithstanding the above loop, an urban industrial layout with no elevation changes - lots of structures, streets, switching, and grittiness.  

So I made the room work for me, but in hindsight, I sure would have preferred straight walls!

Al Carter

Mount Vernon

@Al:

I grew up on 10th street a couple blocks from the park. My parents moved to Stanwood after I left college but I do visit the area often. There was a lot of new homes out toward Big Lake so I wonder if that’s the direction you went. 

My bonus room is 16’ x 24’ but, like yours, the walls go down to 48” above the floor. I just painted up the slope of the ceiling. Not the best solution but works for me as my attention is on the trains and not the ceiling. At 7:12 pitch it is 6’-4” (4 x 7” + 48”) so I occasionally brush my head on the ceiling but couldn’t imagine running trains sitting down. 

Lighting is a challenge but I’ve invited Bill Brillinger to check out the space and I know we will come up with a creative solution. Here are a couple early pics during construction:

Neil, I'm in Nookachamp

Neil,

I'm in Nookachamp Hills, a development east of Highway 9, just south of the Big Lake School, if you know where that is.  

My solution for lighting the layout with my sloped ceiling was to use track lighting (from Home Depot).  But I didn't mount the tracks directly onto the ceiling.  I instead affixed them to a 1x3 board and hung that from the ceiling via lightweight chains.  That way, whenever I managed to bump into a can light, it simply sways the board and lights a bit. 

I used 75 watt daylight LED's in the cans - I think there are 15 on the long side, a couple across the end, where I have made a drop in section to bridge the gap to the other side of the room (to my "port" area) and 5 lights over that 8 foot section.  This provides plenty of light, and they don't give off much heat.

Unfortunately, the room (and sole window) faces west, so it gets a bit toasty in the summer up there, in the afternoons/evenings.  I do have a roll around portable a/c unit that helps cool it down, if needed, but in the summer I find more to do to keep me busy outside anyway, so I tend to not spend that much time up there that time of year.

Al Carter