New Workbench Location: Part Two

Although I haven't unpacked some of the railroad boxes from last year's move, the new workbench location is well under way and inspiring more organization to come. The work order with the electric company  is set for this week, and our crew arrives tomorrow to continue work on upgrading our home's electrical system. After that is completed I can install lighting for the workbench and begin prepping another corner of the basement for the Nooksack sections (first TOMA section).

The "cave" under the basement stairs and landing also needs some additional light source. Since my last post, I installed some shelves and started organizing it as a storage area. I purchased some plastic bins/totes that slide under the stairs and installed a shelf for my tool boxes. One box has evolved to hold electrical and track laying specific tools while the other contained scenery tools over the last few years. I still need to determine whether I will use the bay provided by the cave to hold a larger or smaller rolling cart as I have both options at hand.

While I am fairly deep into the rabbit hole of researching and designing the structure for the Curtis Cannery industry for Nooksack, based on the Kale Cannery of Everson Washington, I suspect that my next post will involve the room preparation for Nooksack to move into place. 

New Workbench Location

In my last post I mentioned that I had started work on the new location of my model railroad workshop, and I have completed some first steps including setting up my workbench. The photo above shows the status as of now.

I had initially set up my modeling workshop in an alcove off the main basement, which is now becoming the laundry and general household work area. I chose a space next to the basement stairs as the new location. I believe that this space will not impinge too much into the aisle along the future town of Chikamin, and the "cave" under the stairs and landing provide some space for storage of modeling materials. 

The first steps I took included painting the sprayed on foam insulation on the wall and the dingy basement "trim" with my sky blue latex paint. Our contractor has run a new circuit through the basement for the railroad, but we are waiting for the new service entrance and 200 amp breaker box installation to connect the circuit. One can see the new outlet by the workbench in the initial photo. Until the service call by the power company is finally scheduled I will still be working with extension cords strung across the floor. 

With the pegboard mounted and my Ikea workbench/desk set up I have a place to work finalized. With the shelves under the landing edge cleaned up and painted (top left on initial photo) I have started some shelving for modeling supplies. 

The next steps: 

• Add some shelving and tote storage under the stairs 
• Install shelving along the wall under the landing 
• Figure out where I can best add my small parts bins
• Consider adding a rolling cart/work-table to the "cave"
• Extend the blue wall painting to the initial TOMA location
• Tackle painting the floor