New Home, More Space, Big Plans

My wife and I closed on a home back at the end of June. Yes, it does have a basement! Finally, after several years of inconvenient or inadequate space, the Kanawha, Youngstown & Northern has a home.

As you can see, the basement is a blank slate. This part is about 22'-4" x 36'-0", the previous owner built an addition off the adjacent corner which resulted in a second space about 16' x 39'. The two parts aren't directly connected, except for a narrow passage way next to the stairs, but should be accessible for staging and a recreation room for the kids. Eventually, that space could be part of a significant expansion of the railroad.

There is a bit of work to do in the basement before building benchwork. There is a large coal stoker furnace in the basement that is unusable and takes up a large piece of real estate, that will have to be disassembled in place and hauled out piece by piece. There are also a couple of non load bearing walls that need to be removed or relocated. Ssome of the wiring in the basement is suspect, but I will have to reconfigure the wiring for all new lighting anyway.

I have started on a track plan, I believe I have settled on a plan for the first (lower) level, the second (upper) level is still a work in progress. Check it out! (click to enlarge)

Hopefully I will be able to provide more updates this winter when I start work on the basement issues and transition into benchwork.