Recently I was able to pick up a really strong table base with adjustable feet from my university. They wanted to throw it away...

It's all metal and almost the perfect size for 6x3 baseplates, which is just big enough to fit a loop of train track.

So I went to the hardware store and ordered a tabletop (768 x 1536 mm). After sanding and smoothing the corners, I screwed it to the base and applied 2 coats of wood oil to seal the surface. 

The first photo shows it in its final spot. I'm still waiting for the oil to harden, can't wait to start building :)

The window is north facing and that corner never gets direct sunlight, so it's the perfect spot. 

Before building this table, I was planning to build an L-shaped layout, which would have required additional legs, some non-90-deg cuts and moving around a lot of furniture. It's still an option in the future when I'm running out of space, but for now I like the idea of starting small.

The second image is the first draft of the layout, featuring some of the buildings I have designed over the last few years: 

On the left will be a modified version of the Studgate train station with a glass roof.

The white rectangle is a Paradisa-style restaurant inspired by 6376.

In the centre of the layout I will build a cathedral, surrounded by a park.

The tan areas will be wall-to-wall buildings, potentially with an open back. One of them will be my Library building. 

My biggest worry right now are the open areas, especially the sidewalks. I will need hundreds of tiles to cover all of those areas, and I still need to decide on the sidewalk colour. Light grey? Dark tan?

For now I have decided against a loop of train track. It just takes too much space and a train running around a single loop would probably get boring really quickly.

However, I'm thinking about running my subway under the layout, but that's for the future when I'm done with the overground part.

I have already sourced the pieces for the train station, the restaurant and the cathedral, so expect more updates soon.

If you have suggestions for the layout, please let me know!

Getting started with a town layout