fighting procrastination fifteen minutes at a time

All change..

It’s been a year since arriving at my current spot and now is the time to finally sort out my space. It’s the first time I have had the time and a space to be able to mould to my plans and so I have drawn up some ideas to help me decide what goes where. Now normally I’m guessing that most people have a reasonable amount of room to set up their model railway but in my case I have about 7 feet along a wall for layout and about the same for a bench, so some might think rather compact. With a bed the usable space becomes even more restrictive but then the challenge of how one goes about deciding the optimal use case is part of the fun for me.

First of all everything needs to come out and the room prepped for a coat of paint it’s been a bit of a drawn out process picking the colour as I wanted something darker not only to reduce light levels in the room but to also make a bit of a backdrop for taking photos and maybe some video in the future. As it is a north facing room light levels are lower but this works to my favour in that going for the “low key” effect a darker hue reduces the reflections. I know this is not necessarily railway modelling related but I definitely subscribe to a holistic approach and taking into account things like room environment is maybe something that is not given much though in the genesis of a railway room, it is as much about a bit of theatre as just a room to run a railway. Also I will probably only get one chance to setup as I want as the disruption of reinventing it would be too costly and time consuming.

Much of the room furniture needs to be configured to the need and as such I’m unlikely going to roll up to Ikea and return with a flat-packed solution. Due to the limited space I have measured up the workbench and desk to allow for a comfortable work height and depth and as can be seen from plan the idea of a fold up extension is to give me a good depth when modelling but can be folded away to not interfere with layout operation when I am playing trains! The idea of having to get out and put away may be onerous to some but for me it will be a help in that my natural tendencies to clutter and chaos will be curbed.

So now that I have the plan in place and have mocked up with CAD (and that’s cardboard aided modelling) I need to get on with the doing. Over the next week I’ll be making a start and will post on the progress.

Till next time

8 Comments

  1. Chris Mears

    It’s exciting, the pace of these updates and even more so now to see your vision starting to take shape. I like the way the space provides you with somewhere to work, somewhere to leave a project that needs a bit of consideration, and then somewhere for things that will make it to the layout and that these spaces are so close at hand. It reminds me of a really good kitchen layout.

    Chris

    • 15minutemodeller

      Well I am trying to stick to the fifteen minute mantra and although I may not achieve it physically every day I’m counting things like computer time and re-reading old mags as practical and educational. Like most things in life it’s not a sequential timeline. But I’ve completed my first project almost and who would have thought a circle of track would be so important. I’ve got a bunch of ideas and commissions to work on so there should be no excuse to not be modelling! 🙂

      • Chris Mears

        Reviewing previous inspiration always feels like a practical investment of time. Do you find that when you revisit an idea after time has passed you respond the same way?

        Chris

        • 15minutemodeller

          Funnily enough this was in my mind yesterday as I found an old sketchbook with some roundy designs in and I was thinking about a post along those lines havin just lookedat your sketches in your last post. Yes I usually see them from a different perspective and some I like and some I don’t, it’s usually the ones I work on that have some longevity but as I draw in magnitude than I build there’s always going to be something interesting.

          • Chris Mears

            And me too. I find some designs become almost timeless in the way I draw and redraw them. Sometimes I feel like I’m refining a track plan and sometimes it’s almost a nervous habit.

            Chris

          • 15minutemodeller

            I think I have 3 designs that are a itch that needs scratching and I’m just contemplating whether I should a) build them b) what scale.. 🙂

          • Chris Mears

            Not sure on the count but I’m probably in the same boat. Funny how for some plans scale is a function of the design or vice versa. Sometimes a plan that’s brilliant in one scale isn’t as much do in another.

            Chris

          • 15minutemodeller

            Totally agree.. and for me it feeds my inveterate rubber gauging.. just need to build some of it now. Well after my first big project..

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