The evolution of a Train Room (aka - a playroom).

Way back in November we went to visit my parents for Thanksgiving.  One of our  family traditions is to set up the Christmas tree Thanksgiving weekend and to set up a villiage with a train underneath it.  This year was just like all the others.  The day before we headed home we helped my parents set up the tree and the train. We let Lillie watch the train before she went to bed and she was positively mesmerized.  She watched it loop around and around and around .. her little head moving from side to side over and over again.

After seeing Lillie so enthralled with the train my father decided that he had to get us our very own train set to go under our Christmas tree so the Hogwarts Express arrived soon after our return home and was indeed placed under our tree. Christmas season saw friends and family visiting ... all the little kids were in love with the train.  Then Christmas season ended and it was time to put the train away.  Our nephew Liam (who loves trains) would come to visit and ask to see the train (that was boxed up). 

Somewhere in those early days of 2011 the plan started to materialize for a Train Room ... along the way we enlisted the help of our sisters (for ideas, purchasing/donating materials, and painting), George's parents (cleaning & electrical), and Lillie (entertainment).  We also tried to keep the entire thing a secret from my dad ... not always easy.

We started with a typical unfinished basement: stained exterior concrete walls, open floor joists for a ceiling, dingy/ dirty cement floors, florecent lights, lonely bare lights, and lots of random stuff. 

We spent a few months sorting through the "stuff".  We recycled old papers and college textbooks, we sent some things to a yard sale, we dropped off a bunch of stuff at a white goods drop, some stuff went home wih other family memebers, and some of it we just managed to organize better.  Then George did a bunch of work cleaning the floor, painting the cement, installing some track lighting, putting up drywall, and building a wall. We primed the new walls and bought some nice rubber floor mats.

We painted clouds on blue fabric that we would drape from the ceiling to look like the sky.  George scrubbed/ cleaned the concrete wall and then we primed that too. We painted the top of the walls white and the bottom half of the walls were soon painted gray.  The metal posts were boxed in and we moved in a long wooden bench the George's family already owned.

The new box posts were painted white to match the rest of the room and baseboard was installed throughout.  We put the fabric panels up.  George built a countertop for the halfwall. We bought and assembled storage benches to block off/enclose the room a bit and give places to stash all the toys. George built a train table in less than 24 hours and the room was (mostly) ready.  We still have some work to do but family can enjoy it anyway.