What version are you on now Gordon, must be V5? But with that comes experience, and the more you do, the more you learn different skills, the more reasons I like railway modeling. The second to last photo in this thread, is that board in the middle staying there or are you building in the middle, I can't find your most recent plan.
Having been a away for 5 months, it's certainly changed for the better, and hope you keep plowing away, and soon enough you'll have somewhere to sit, and watch trains go by.