Despite a burst of activity in May and June I have done very little on the modelling front in recent months, not sure whether or what but things were just not conductive to modelling.

When we moved to Hamilton I initially concentrated on the garden railway to get something running but had no permanent home for my Irish Models.

We initially planned to build a new hobby room/studio as the garage appeared to be in poor condition and all the rooms in the house in use.

I set up a temporary storage yard and shelving for the G Scale in the garage and negotiated a space for my workbench in a spare bedroom and eventually the office.

I unearthed and started to work on a narrow gauge layout started in Auckland and to build a broad gauge layout on a bookshelf.

The narrow gauge occupies two sides of the room above a computer desk and you neary need scaffolding to access the storage/display shelves above the layout.

So maybe the problem was more to do with the lack of a proper layout room than anything else Kirleys shed inspired me so maybe it was time to have a close look at the garage.

Although the garage was leaning over at an angle and the floor was damp, most of the framing and weatherboard was sound, my tools and electronic equipment stored there were showing no ill effects of damp

The big advantage of timber over brick and block is that its easy to level and repair an old structure.

The wooden piles that supported the framing had rotted away causing one side to sink and the whole structure to lean over. Levelling the garage and replacing the piles was fairly simple, the biggest problem was that the ground was waterlogged after two months of heavy rain (St Swittan?) when I was replacing the piles it was basically a race against time to dig out, install and concrete the pile before the hole filled up with water.

The repairs were simple enough the biggest job was moving everything out and putting it into storage.

At this stage I have installed a false ceiling and started to line the walls with plasterboard, with 3-4 weeks work to complete.

This should give me a room approximately 17' 6" x 11' mainly for railway use and a workshop.

The basic idea is to have the G Scale storage sidings on one side with a U shaped Irish layout on the next layer at a height of approx 4' and storage shelving display cases above and a workbench in the middle.

I hope to base the Irish layout on the Burma Road or North Kerry from early CIE days up to closure/end of traditional freight working, getting some track down should be a good incentive to sort out the running with my locos and stock.

The only confounder is to find a space for ladders, powertools etc without having to build an extra shed