The Epic Train Birthday Present

So I mentioned a few posts back that there was quite the story around Nathan’s birthday present this year. And I wanted to record it, so here we are. ;)

I had really wanted to get something Thomas the Train related for him for his birthday, but have you seen the prices on that stuff? Thomas is seriously expensive.

Not to be deterred so easily, I started searching craigslist and other yard sale facebook groups to see if I could find something cheaper secondhand. The nice thing about having my parents live in another state is that I can check their craigslist too – and I found a HUGE lot of Thomas stuff being sold on their area’s craigslist.

But it was being sold for $375 – which is a little more than I wanted to pay for a birthday present. So talked to Nana and Grandma to see if they wanted to go in on it with me. And they did! We also managed to talk the seller down to $350 too, so that helped. It was still more than I’d typically spend on a birthday present, but there was so much stuff, that I’m pretty sure we’re set for Christmas and Birthdays for the next 2 years at least!

When we went down to my parent’s for the birthday party, I spent a good chunk of time going through allllll the Thomas stuff to determine what Nathan was going to get this year. I mean, look at all this!!!!

Once I’d laid it all out, I didn’t even know where to start! I mean, that’s got to be a couple hundred pieces of track right there. I ended up looking online for some set ideas to see if I could just pull out enough pieces to make a set that is already sold and then at least we’d had track for that. While I was searching, I found the retail prices of some of the things we got and I was completely blown away. When we’d first bought the lot, I thought we had maybe $500-$600 worth of stuff. Now I’m pretty sure we have at least $1000 worth of Thomas product right here, with a little bit of Brio and IKEA mixed in. You better believe I was doing the happy dance! You know I love me a good deal – it’s right up there with my family, ice cream, DIY and craft supplies ;)

I ended up finding a website that had diagrams of different track configurations and I downloaded a couple of patterns to work with. Most of them included special pieces that I didn’t have so it ended up taking me a good hour and a half to modify the patterns and put together a track with the stuff that I had AND have it all connect. It turned out pretty freakin’ awesome though:

And yeah, it took up most of the floor in the guest bedroom. I had to move the rug out of the way and everything. So for his birthday Nathan got all the pieces of this track and 10 trains. He loves them! The roundhouse/shed thing makes fun train noises and there was a cute birthday themed Thomas and railcar that I found to go in his 10 trains. And I still have about 50 more trains and some cool track pieces in my stash for Christmas, next year’s birthday, potty training prizes (if I can every work up the nerve to potty train…) and so on. Call me crazy (I’m pretty sure John and my Dad did… ;) ) but I’m pretty excited!