I wanted to include a Yard office on this portion of my layout and looked a few online and then I remembered that the wife had scored me a box of what I think is some older Marklin structures on Craigs List.

So I pulled the box out of the closet and found what I think would make a neat office. Although it is a little more modern than some of the other structures I plan on using, I figure it could be a stage of the layout that has gone through a little modernization and show some progress.

Worked on installing the water tower today.

First mounted it on a piece of foam core as a base and painted a base coat of earth color.  I used foam as foundation for small hill and will add to it and cover with vegetation later.

When I first put it in place was a bit to close as the fill pipe would hit the engines, and had to move it back a bit.

So after I've done the track work and time to move to the next step, so looking for opinions as to lay ballast or landscape first?

Just finished placing the last coat of Rusty pipe color on the rails and was wondering if anybody else was using MicroBrushes for applying adhesives?

I've found them quite handy and thought I'd share that not only does the Hobby industry use them but also dentistry and cosmetics do to. So I've discovered you can get them in a bulk quantity on Amazon for around $6.50 for 100 of them under the title "Eyelash Extension lint free microbrush". you could probably find them just under microbrush search also and they come in other sizes as well

Started weathering the Rails with the Rusty Pipe color acrylic paint. It's a bit tedious but looks good so far. May do one more coat.

In the pics I placed a piece of white paper in front to get a better idea of the color, as it tended to blend in with the base color in view.

Here's my latest update on progress and some better pics. I've finished the Barn wood color on the ties and wil move on to painting the rails next. The Barnwood acrylic color is made by Folk Art, and for the rail color I'm going to use their Rusted Pipe color. The Mississippi Mud I used for the base color is made by Americana.

The shelf I'm using I purchased at lowes. Pics of it in my first post, will post better ones when I get a chance. It's about 4 feet long and 10" deep. I covered the top with a piece of Gator foam. I save the foam from packages of items we buy now and again, comes in handy. From my measurements I found my shelf was about an inch too narrow so I added another strip of foam to the back, to make up for it.

So in a previous comment I had said that I based my layout on a version from " Small, Smart and Practical Track Plans" by Iain Rice I came across when researching this. it was based on a three shelf layout he had done.

So Here are a couple of pics from the book that I've based mine on with some modification.

This is my first layout, so being that I don't have a large amount of space I'm starting small.
I figure this way I'll be realizing some accomplishment with my work sooner than trying to attempt a large layout.
I've decided to go with a shelf switchng layout, after searching for information on small layouts.
So here are some pics on what I've done so far.