Buying a house with model railway in mind...

[Dr Al]

Hi folks,

 

Has anyone moved or bought their house with one of the main criteria being space for a layout? If so, any thoughts, comments etc? A lot of modern houses seem to have very small rooms, which actually seems to rather limit choice (for context, I'm hoping to have a room at very least 10' square for an N gauge layout maybe 10'x 4' or 10'x 6')....

 

Cheers,
Alan

 

 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Our last - and hopefully that means final - move, I did have such an idea in mind, although my wife's priority list was somewhat different.

 

So we didn't buy the probate sale with the 40 by 25 foot studio in the back garden, complete with all the musical kit of long ago departed son and rock band buddies (the house failed on other of madam's criteria) but did get the one with a 30 by 11 foot outbuilding: neither of which extremely useful spaces were mentioned at all in the agent's property descriptions.

 

Likewise we saw one with an excellent proper attic of which the agents took little notice, and another with a properly constructed summerhouse in the garden, which was mentioned in throwaway style in the smaller print after the main description: Rear garden with summerhouse.

 

Good luck with it, there should be something out there for you.

[bgman]

Hi Alan,

I think you could have opened up a can of worms here LOL !

However, if you are looking to model in N gauge then have you considered converting a garage?

Having no regard for housing my car ( many years ago) I converted the attached garage which gave me an 18' x 7' space in which to model. The main benefit being I could work in comfort and being secure have no real concerns about safety of the contents.

Obviously there is a cost involved, however the ability to gain a space which can be made to suit your own requirements is a real bonus. As a recently retired Building Control officer ( yes I can hear the comments coming as I type this) I felt that the layouts which were built in a loft area ( restricted and cold also not good for the expensive loco's, stock and buildings) generally had awkward access unless a specific scheme for conversion was undertaken. Having been in the construction industry from an early age and designed, surveyed and dare I say condemned build work, may I respectfully suggest you look for something at either ground or first floor level within or attached to a house which may lend itself to either a walk-in or ready to convert room ( if it's got a double garage you could be in modellers heaven !!).

Sorry to have gone on a bit but it is a big investment and with a layout in mind even more so.

Good luck with your search and above all happy modelling.

Kind regards

Grahame

[Colin]

We're looking to move house and my wife and I have already had a some interesting "discussions" concerning my requirement for a hobbies room. As I model in 4mm/00, I'm looking for a second/third bedroom of around 11 x 8 for a continuous "layout that never leaves home" secondary main line which will probably be pretty much a retirement project. Mrs W really doesn't understand why I can't manage with a much smaller space.......

I don't want to use the garage again unless I have to (done it before, there were too many security considerations as well as lighting/heating issues) and unless the loft has been properly converted with windows and a staircase (or we could afford to have it done properly) I'd be most reluctant to consider it as I have no wish to wrestle heavy stock boxes out of a loft space and down a steep ladder every time I have an exhibition.

The problem is, we also need a guest (double) bedroom and so far most of the 3-bed houses we've seen have had 2 decent bedrooms plus a third which is more like a big cupboard! 4-bed houses seem to be no better - 1 medium size plus 3 very small bedrooms seems to be the norm.

 

I just keep looking and hoping!

[Matt]

Could never find a suitable house up here in Aberdeen so bought one with an adjoining garage and built my own hobby room on top of the garage. Wasn't as expensive as I thought it might be partly because foundations were suitable to build up... (I should clarify, paid a professional builder to build it...)

 

Other alternative is loft conversion but make sure house has enough clearance in loft for lining out and still being able to walk.

 

Although these are relatively costly options, you will get some of it back when you sell on...

M

[Metr0Land]

We moved into our current 1930's semi back in 1989 (it had been converted from 3 to 4 beds mid 80's) and I was allowed the top room which gave me a nominal 14' x 10' (though dormer windows meant I couldn't get the full 10' for decent curves at one end).  Unfortunately due to being a wage slave I didn't really get started in any meaningful way until 2007 and now we're looking to move.........

 

The good news is that the bungalow we're hoping to buy has a 17' x 14' garage which I'm hoping to convert to a proper room.  (Hopefully the spend to make it useable is going to be allowed for in our budget and there's something for both of us : The Head of Household curr uses our smallest bedroom as a sewing room and she'll be getting a room almost double the size - fingers crossed)

[rodshaw]

Ooh, I can dream. The number of times you read in magazine articles, "A house move meant I was without a layout for several years" or some such. As and when we move, I think all I could insist on would be one end of a garage to accommodate my 6-foot shelf layout. A whole room, or even half of one, any size, would be bliss. But you never know.

[Herr Dienstleiter]

I think that there is another thread somewhere here about the issues around converting a garage (essentially that you must convert it into a workshop with no hint of it being habitable, see below). We have just moved into a 1936 semi with a garden some 120'x30' to the rear, this gives my beloved the garden space she wants for her main relaxation and also means that she is hardly going to miss the 21'X11' that disappears into the new railway shed ... ...

 

Loft conversions are problematic because the joists are unlikely to be strong enough to support a floor to the standard expected by the building regs and getting head room for proper stairs can be a nightmare! Any extensions can count against  your home's limit for permitted deveopment, essentially no more than 1/3 of the cubic capacity of the habitable areas and sometimes local dco/s argue that some of your sheds count against the total. Always take professional advice and try any ideas out with your local development control office first.

[LNER4479]

Hello Alan,

 

We bought our current house eighteen months ago now. Knowing that I was looking for a decent space for model railway activities, friends dubbed our house search as 'large room with a house attached' - and that is exactly what we ended up with (the 'large room' being a former Methodist chapel). It seems from what you say that your requirements may not be quite that large(!) but here are some thoughts based on our experience nonetheless:

 

1) Choice between paying more to buy a house with the room you want or pay less to buy a house with 'potential' and then spend the difference on house conversion work (we did the latter to end up with what we wanted)

2) How critical is the choice of location where you live? We looked all over the north of England before finding our place.

3) Make good use of the 'Rightmove' website (that's how we found our place)

4) It's a buyers market at the moment so can afford to take time to shop around - our place had been on the market for the best part of a year before we found it and we got it for a lot less than the original asking price.

5) If contemplating an older property (which typically has more room) be prepared for on-going property maintenance(!)

6) Look for the win-win with the missus and be prepared to honour your side of the bargain! Mine was very understanding (it was she who first found the place on Rightmove!) and we now have a decent master bedroom/en-suite following the conversion work (the model railway room was more or less' ready to go') - that was 'the deal'!

 

Apologies if any of the above is motherhood and apple pie - but you did ask!

[roger440]

Just buying a house with a 1300 sq/ft outbuilding (again, only mentioned in the small print). There wil be cars i  there also, but much scope

[richbrummitt]

When we moved back from California to Ottawa in 2002 we bought a house with a finished basement: more to do with fitting our budget than anything else.  After a couple of years of no trains (well, actually, four years really) we decided to buy a much larger new house with an unfinished basement.  Paradise!!  My new railway started a year later we moved, in 2009.  Happy husband, happy wife.....

 

My wife jests "Happy Wife = Happy life"

 

I moved out of the 2nd bedroom of our previous house (13'2" x 8'11") into the 3rd bedroom of the current one. My wife offered whichever room because she wanted me to have space for hobbies. We wanted a guest bedroom and I know that long term this was more likely to remain mine, although there's no guarantee. I argued that I could use the attached garage for most of my tools (mill, drill, lathe etc.) and that we must get a shed for the bikes and lawn mower etc. to allow this despite the garden being modest. That way I would be fine in the smallest room, which is probably 8' square. She agreed. Before my wife had her craft stuff in the 'hobby room' with my stuff but now we have a second room downstairs we have a separate smaller sitting room with a desk and drawers that she uses instead so this room is all for trains, despite being smaller. We looked at and offered on a house with an 18'x10' 3rd bedroom, but the house wasn't quite right for a great many other reasons and we weren't disappointed that it fell through. This house isn't perfect for a layout but we both feel that we'll be very happy here for some time to come. 

 

Keep seeking and ye shall find. Perhaps it will not be what you imagined but it could be what you need/want/like.

[MarkSG]

Potential layout space was certainly a factor when we were house-hunting last year, yes. Although I haven't yet made a start on it (due to other priorities), the fact that this house has three suitable potential locations (garage, loft and space in the garden for a sizeable outbuilding) was one of the reasons I liked it. 

[45059]

When we bought our house in 2005 it was always on my mind that the second bedroom would be for a layout. We ended up with a 1930s 3 bed semi which gave me a 12'4''x 8' room at the rear of the house. We have it in mind to extend the rear of the house to match next doors extension, which will then give me 12'4''x 18'. Hence if you see any shots of my layout you'll see that I haven't ballasted yet- I'm loathed to do so knowing that I'm going to rip it all up again in a couple of years! So for the time being at least, I see my layout as a 'test track' for bigger and better things (hopefully) to come!

[tomparryharry]

Our house had a double garage, and a workshop. Essentially, 3 garages across. The vendor had left a Boxford lathe in the workshop....

 

"That'll do for me....."

 

They are out there. You will sometimes have to look. My neighbour has a loft I would kill for. Its about 9 feet high at the apex, with a useable 40 x 15 feet working area. Truly a size fit for a Western layout. He, however, is into third rail stuff.....

 

What a waste.....

 

Ian

Trifle Quality Control

[Baby Deltic]

I've just moved into a three bedroom semi. The attic is a nice size for a layout (seasonal) and is fully boarded out. I could do with having the chimney demolished to the attic floor to allow for more access and bigger fiddle yards. I also have a spare bedroom in mind for a smaller (all year round) layout. The other plan is to get a 20ft x 10ft workshop in the garden so I can setup my exhibition layout and work on it.

[Ian Smeeton]

I wasn't that lucky. Our budget was small, and our time limited, but we still ended up in a house with a garage (single) attached, which may do the job when funds permit.

 

However, the old coal house had been incorporated into the house by he addition of a small utility room.

 

Apart from having to share with the cats feeding space (it is divided from the rest of the house by a suitable gate), my "playpen" is becoming reasonably habitable after dealing with the damp.

 

A layout is now a probability rather than a pipe dream.

 

I feel a 2FS St Enochs little brother coming on!

 

Regards

 

Ian

[TheQ]

The Last house was supposedly 3 bed room, but two of the bedrooms were 6ft 6inches by 7 ft!! (1970s built house), and a 30ft square rear garden. no model railway layouts for me there then. Luckily the requirements for the next house as set by the authorities were as few neighbours as possible,  a large garden for the mob you see on the avatar, 2 or three proper sized bedrooms.

 We ended up with 3, 14ft square bedrooms a acre and a half of garden, a double garage, and a 3 bedroom mobile home in the garden ( put there when the previous owners had the roof of the house replaced). It was luckily for us during the previous house price depression and I had a secure well paid job at the time so we could afford it then, we couldn't now.

The things against this are, difficulty in getting jobs (2/3 of my search area is the north Sea) so I now drive 22 miles to  work instead of walking and as the house is 1906 with 1 brick walls a high heating bill.  The mobile home I had hoped to use has become a holiday home for all the family visitors (20 weeks one year) we receive as we now live in a holiday area, as the house stairs are too steep for my parents and others.  so I had to build a large shed in the garden, and again I was lucky, as one of the few good things (for me) that Prescott did was to change the planning laws so you can have have a shed up to 50% the size of your garden (there are other restrictions). So large shed ( not anyway near 50% of the garden) is almost finished .

The Q

[rodshaw]

A conversation not to have with your other half when house hunting (or any time really):

 

O.H.: What would you say if I said it was either me or the model railway?

You: Chuff! Chuff!

[The Stationmaster]

Another route is to do what I did - plan a house from the ground up and size the attic accordingly.  Great - until the Planners got uppity after a couple of objections and to get the necessary PP I had to drop the roofline and thus the headroom in the attic.  So the attic became, well,  an attic - notwithstanding joists which have a very generous load spec (good for magazine storage!) and we built a double garage with the money we had leftover after selling our previous house; strange to relate it's a double garage with only one up & over door and a well insulated stud wall down the (not quite) middle.

 

The galling bit is several years later someone built a house two doors up the road which has a roofline height that outs ours in the shade (almost literally).

[Dr Al]

Thanks to all for their intersting comments so far.

 

The problem I feel is that so many houses these days seem to have very small or oddly shaped rooms, which tends to rule out a lot of options (I seem to recall reading somewhere that the UK has the smallest new house room sizes anywhere in Europe, which I can believe).

 

My own feeling is that I'd much prefer a dedicated railway room within the house, rather than using a garage or outside location, both from the point of view of security and comfort of being able to run quickly and conveniently.

 

Currently therefore a waiting game for me....rightmove serach is one of my homepages now, so I see new listings asap!!!

 

Cheers,
Alan

[RedgateModels]

Oh yes,

 

moved last week and this snap is the "loft" which is accessed by a door from our bedroom - I only agreed to move if this was to be my space

 

 

there are other less railway suitable areas of the loft for the usual junk, but the stand up-able area is mine, mine I say!

[pete_mcfarlane]

So we didn't buy the probate sale with the 40 by 25 foot studio in the back garden, complete with all the musical kit of long ago departed son and rock band buddies (the house failed on other of madam's criteria) but did get the one with a 30 by 11 foot outbuilding: neither of which extremely useful spaces were mentioned at all in the agent's property descriptions.

I'm currently flat hunting, and finding that Estate Agents are a very mixed bunch and their ability to describe properties varies wildly.

 

Some give you 3 line description of the property in pidgin English and some fuzzy camera phone pictures. Others will give a detailed description along with a properly dimensioned floor plan. The floor plan is kind of essential if you're looking at bedroom sizes with a view to putting a layout in the spare one.

 

There's also variation within the descriptions from each agency, so it's appears to be down to the individual agent and their abilities (or lack of - I guess some of these jobs aren't very well paid).

 

Going OT, what seems to amuse me is the level of hyperbole and outright fibbing in some of the property descriptions, especially the way that nice areas get 'expanded' to include the scummy area next door via phrases like 'adjacent to...' or 'on the edge of....'.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

My wife ran a 'beauty contest' on the local estate agents before we began in earnest and found precisely two out of well past a dozen tested exhibited any competence whatsoever in following a brief of the key characteristics the property had to possess to be of interest. Simple things like 'fully detached', 3+ bedrooms, eighth of an acre or greater plot.

 

When she challenged a couple of the failed offices that we found a little surprising, she was told what amounted to ' we find that customers often have no clear idea of what they might want, so just do a snow job on them'. So it's all the customer's fault then...

[tomparryharry]

The vendors estate agent was a real 'Gem'....

 

He came to the house, after we'd moved in. Looking out the rear window, he said "What's that?"

 

"That is an 8 person, Californian Wooden Hot Tub, in full working order, which your client left behind". 

 

The next bit....

 

"Bu**er me! If I'd known that, I'd have bought the house myself!"

 

Oh dear......

 

Ian

Trifle Quality Control

[TT3]

We were a bit lucky as we built the 3 bedroom house so were able to specify a moderate layout room of about 12X10 feet for the indoor TT layout and still leave 2 other proper bedrooms.

 

Of course the spare room is not enough for the truly ambitions so phase 2 is under way to create the layout shed for the N scale layout, while the space will be about 30' by 20'. It will be a shared space with a car or so in the middle but should provide a decent amount of fun.

 

 

Layout shed will be the existing one, new car shed (24' by 40') being built on the gravel beside it to accommodate workshop, tools, cars and the terminus/staging for an 00 garden layout.