Maybe this topic has been posted before, but if so I can't find it. So, where have you located your layout? What problems did you have to deal with and what compromises did you have to make?

Mine will be on a shelf along one wall of my spare bedroom. My youngest daughter moved out into the big wide world last year and it was actually a few months before I suddenly realised that I had a Train Room However I can't use the whole room because a friend stays a few times each year.

The concept of a shelf appeals because it's simple and is within my limited carpentry abilities. It's a brick wall, so there are no problems relating to load bearing, but the biggest problem will be access to the shadow station at the back (next to the wall and behind the scenery). I'll probably leave it with an open top and a carefully positioned mirror so that I can see what's in there.

Mine is in our basement. I have quite a bit of room for a layout and the climate stays fairly constant throughout the year. My only concern is humidity and I have installed a dehumidifier to take care of that.

In the garage.
And bloody cold during the winters out west despite having re-built the garage and insulated it.
The cold affects my C Track to a huge extent, it can often take about 5 minutes to get a loco operating properly. K Track is affected but to a minor extent.
It the layout had to stay in the garage I would go back to M Track but as it is moving I have chosen K.
So plans are for a move into the lounge where I can get a 2800x1000 space with a modular extension the I intend will slide under and away when the space is required.

I built a temporary shelf layout around the periphery of a 16 x 16 foot room in my apartment. The "benchwork" was no more complex than putting up 2 bookshelves (and within the rules of the apartment!) I built it as a means to experiment with. Here's what I discovered:

1) Access to the room is important. I built the shelf at a height of 60 inches off the floor, and thought that just ducking under the layout (instead of making a hinged, swing-away section) would be OK. Although I'm fairly limber, having to crouch down everytime I wanted to go into the room got old really fast. A "U" shaped layout would have be better from that standpoint.

2) Allow as much height as possible for backdrops. I like to paint my own backdrops, and I found that a large backdrop can make a shelf layout look alot larger than it really is. My backdrops were 2 feet high (a standard width for fiberboard panels here in the USA), and that worked out pretty well.

3) Think about how the layout will be lit. I had a large window at one end of the room that during certain times of the day let in light that would overwhelm the layout. There where times when I would have to close the shades during the day to enjoy the layout. Some layouts are constructed like a museum display with an overhead valance and lighting. I didn't go to that extent, but this certainly gives you absolute control over the lighting.

4) My layout was located in a room for other uses, and by having the layout up high enabled me to use the space below for other non-train things (i.e. television, stereo, file cabinet, etc). Since the layout was only 12 inches deep, being able to reach everything was no problem, despite how high it was off the floor.

I have since taken the layout down, but I learned alot from it.
Model railroader magazine is a good source of information on the construction and presentation of a layout, with the many private layouts featured each month.

My layout is in a spare 12 X 12 bedroom. Right now it is on foam boards on the floor. I plan on finishing by basement later and having a proper layout there. I will have a lot more space to play with :)

My current layout (still under construction, but aren't they always and forever), is 4 x 8 ft and is currently in our formal living room. It's more than a bit incongruous, standing there amidst antique china and crystal cabinets and other fragile antique furniture, but it is a room we really never use, and it was the only one with enough space in it to hold even such a small layout.

I have active plans for a much more elaborate layout, one that will be approximately 10 x 17 ft and will be getting started on that as soon as I am able to convince other family members that the current family room/dining room should be converted to a layout room and current activites there should move to that formal living room. Frankly, it's a hard sell.

Best regards,

Lee Sauer
Sacramento, CA

Yes, best of luck from me too