E. L. Moore's Cal's Lumberyard: The Office

Temporarily staged office / front facade / loading platform

I'm not building this thing in any order that could be considered logical. I decided to build the office next because I had some ideas on how to change its design a little that I wanted to try out.

Overall I want Cal's to look less closed up and more open, so, with this in mind, I introduced 4 large windows along the office's long exterior side, as well as a full length window along the front with a door that had a large window. These are Tichy Train Group items. Unfortunately I don't know their part numbers as they came in Tichy's HO scale assortment box, and I lost the box and parts sheet years ago.

There was a little method to my madness in placing the windows and doors.

I had to make sure the front window and door would not be blocked by the main building's loading door when it was slid open.

Each room was to get 2 exterior windows, and 1 of each pair of windows was to line up so that one could see through to an interior door opening to the main building. 

As well, the passage door opening between the rooms was lined up to be directly in line with the front door.

These alignments were done to maximize the opportunities for long views into the model, and for light to travel as far as possible inside. You may recall I took the same approach with Caleb's Cabbage Co., so it seems to be a design principle for all of Cal's businesses :-)

Outside surfaces

The 3 exterior walls were cut from Evergreen Scale Models Clapboard siding, item #4061, which is 0.040" thick. I made a serious newbie level mistake when I cut the walls: I forgot to make sure the boards were exactly parallel to the long edges of the sheet. It turns out they were a little skewed, and I should have trimmed the sheet so I'd start off with square material. My excuse is I went directly to the sheet's flat side once I pulled it from its packaging, and then drew and cut out the walls. When I flipped the pieces over: ack! I was not in a mood to cut new pieces, so I decided to say they add character to the model and will cast aspersions on Cal :-) The other walls and floor are cut from plain 0.040" sheet styrene. The side of the wall that faces into the main building has been scored to represent horizontal boards.

Inside surfaces

I framed the edges of all the interior window and door openings with 0.020" x 0.040" styrene, which is a bit chunky, but will give some definition when peering inside. I plan to paint the interior some light colour.

I've added a long loading platform to connect the big narrow gauge car exit door opening, the smaller sliding loading door, and the office door. The platform it 8' wide, and is built up from 3 pieces of 0.060" thick sheet styrene and a piece of 0.020" thick scribed styrene for the top layer. I thought the large platform might enhance the possibilities for staging scenes on this end of the building. There likely needs to be a little more done to the platform, but I haven't settled on what just yet.

What's the next step? Maybe the back wall of the main building.