Spot the difference

Another month is drawing to a close and it has been a very successful one!  The wallboard is now finished in the main area of the Trainbarn, so that 'just' leaves the painting and installation of the skirting and chair-rail.  I trialled the colours that I had chosen on the now-finished wall and immediately realised that the dark colour that I had chosen for the wallboard was way too bold and, well, dark.  Good to discover that now!  So I'm going to try a colour which will be very similar to what the wallboards are painted now.

Also the ceiling of the entry area is finished, though awaiting painting.

Another shot of the now-completed main area.

So, all in all great progress! It is so exciting to see it all 'coming together'!  Not too long now before I can start 'playing trains'!!

Trains 'n Trams

I celebrated a significant birthday on the weekend and was very pleased indeed to receive a superb Darstaed O gauge Engine Shed as a gift.  These are based on the pre-war Hornby sheds, but with some improvements.  They are also modular, so that they can be extended length-wise, as long as you need.

This shed will eventually go on my British O gauge layout in the Trainbarn.  This layout will primarily be using recently produced 'coarse' scale equipment produced by companies such as Darstaed, ACE London, WJVintage and ETS.  Just possibly if all this fantastic gear was around a few years ago I might have been tempted to stick with British trains, forgoing some of the US trains, but it wasn't.

This layout, like all my layouts, will be heaps of fun to build!

Also on the weekend, as part of the celebrations, we visited the Brisbane Tramway Museum, and had a really nice picnic in the very well maintained grounds.  And of course some tram rides, on their short track.  Lots of fun!

Plastered

The progress of the last few days has more than made up for the quiet time last month.  Our builders have been installing all the plasterboard in the main display area of the Trainbarn, and as expected it has made a huge difference!  I took some snapshots, though the lighting is difficult.  Anyway, they serve as a great record of the progress.

The main area looking towards the far end.

Looking the other way, towards the entryway.

Looking towards the front wall.  The large Standard Gauge layout table will be in this area.

I really like the angled 'portal-frame' ceiling, it makes the whole area seem more spacious than a flat ceiling would have.  It was no harder to do, just different trusses.  You can see that I still need to do quite a lot of the wallboard below the plaster!  Next week the plasterer will come to start the massive job of filling and smoothing off all the joins.  Not a job that I particularly envy!!  Ok, then I'm left with the equally massive job of painting!!

Not long now before trains can become the focus, rather than building.

First of August

It's been a while since the last post, as I've been away with work.  Little or no progress at the 'barn, although all the plasterboard and insulation have been delivered ready to finish-off the main area.  Over to the builders now!  

What is significant about today- the first day of August- is that it was 25 years ago on this day that we 'settled' on the purchase of this piece of land!  The story about how we came to buy this block is a long and rather amazing one, too long to re-tell here.  Suffice to say we are still absolutely thrilled that we can be the custodians of this block for a period of time.

We actually came up for a weekend prior to settlement, as at the time we were just about to head off as a family on a big adventure.  We needed somewhere to store a few of the 'treasures' that I had accumulated over the years and so we obtained permission from the (absent) owners to visit and drop off some things a couple of weeks before taking ownership.

Here are some photos from an old 'sticky' album of that visit, the very first time.  I brought a little mower and mowed a small patch by the front dam, and we set up our old tent for the girls to play and rest in.

The road is in the background.  Our youngest daughter, seen here on the rug, is of course now 25!

The two older girls sitting on the dam wall.  On the trailer is a 2 foot gauge Cane Inspectors 'car', which I regret to report remains unrestored.

For comparison, here are a couple of more recent photos of this front area.

There is still a lot of work to do on this front area before it's a fitting entry to the Trainbarn.  Getting there though!  The area at the back/top of the property where we now live was utterly inaccessible at this early stage.  It was only quite a while later that we ventured into 'the bush' and discovered the beautiful ridge where our cottage now stands.

The 'Title Deeds' for land now are boring computer printouts, but we were fortunate when we bought this block that a reasonably old 'proper' title was bestowed on us at settlement.  It only dates from 1941, so an earlier one must have existed, perhaps prior to the block being divided up from something much bigger.  We subsequently bought the block next door as well, when it came up for sale.

This now hangs proudly in my office, hence the window reflection. 

This property- 'The Land' as it used to be known, has been and is a fantastic blessing to us as a family.  For me it is absolutely a dream come true, as I had always wanted to do this sort of thing since I was a child.  Now I'm a bigger child, playing with bigger toys!!  Long may it continue!