A journal following the history, design, construction and operation of Bernard Kempinski's O Scale model railroad depicting the U. S. Military Railroad (USMRR) Aquia-Falmouth line in 1863, and other model railroad projects.
©Bernard Kempinski All text and images, except as noted, on this blog are copyrighted by the author and may not be used without permission.
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August 11, 2019

The floor is done.

The contractors finished their work on Saturday. They worked very hard and were super nice.  They were the only crew to take on the job and they did it with gusto. We plan to use the same crew to do some remodeling work on our front entry.
The crew - Edwin, Jeff, Alberto, Fasto, Erwin and Rudi (l to r) 

The tile looks great.  It will take a few vacuuming and mop ups to get all the tile grout up.  I think tile is a good surface as it can survive an occasional spill plus should hold up in minor floods.

I plan to put some kind of foam tiles near my work bench and  spray booth as that area sees the most paint spills.  Speaking of work benches, I plan to redesign my model building bench. I want to make it smaller to give more room for operators at Aquia Landing. I also will be rebuilding a new woodworking bench in the garage.

In order to install the tile under the layout they trimmed some of the legs with my permission and used temporary 2x4 supports to support the layout. Once the tiles were in and secure, I used shims bring it back to the correct height. There was very little damage to the layout. In a few places I will touch up the back drop where the movement caused some cracks in the scenery.

The plastic sheeting worked great for keeping dust off the layout.  I didn't put sheeting over all of the Aquia Landing area so there is a lot of dust that I need to vacuum up.

We changed the wall colors to a light warm gray. It really helped brighten the room.  I do plan to paint a large backdrop on the crew lounge, but for now I'll enjoy the fresh paint.

I still have a lot more work to get the basement back in action
The workers also helped me carry the book boxes down to the basement, which was a great help.  But before I put the shelves back up, I need to relocate the TV. That means trying to figure out the internal cable TV wiring in the house. I am also taking this opportunity to reorganize my library.



2 comments:

  1. Congratulations Bernie! Having been through both a water damage repair and a current house remodel job, I understand well your challenges. Glad to see you are taking the opportunity to pursue expanding the Aquia Line, albeit at the loss of POLA. Glad that went on to a good home.

    You might look at Trafficmaster foam tiles at Home Depot. I found some with a travertine (think light mottled beige) pattern on their surfaces. That works great for my operating crews and keeps my space bright. These particular tiles seem to be exclusive too HD.

    Bill Decker

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