I have been using surface textures from internet sources for pavements and other things printed on my home HP printer and applied to the layout. Here is an example of an asphalt parking area that I used by the brewery main building.

I'm making a lot of progress in my big change of direction:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/24650

I have previously noted in my Under Table archeology post:  http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/24998  of finding a long lost and forgotten Ten Wheeler from my earliest days in HO railroading.  Thanks to "ogremtb" for identifying it as an Aristo-Craft model.

I am making progress in my renewing the layout, mentioned in this post:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/24650

There have been a number of threads in recent times involving layout size, having time to complete a layout, or  other areas of satisfaction.  On my layout, things have been kind of standing still except for some structure and rolling stock work.  I have decided to down-size by quite a bit.  Partly the reason is my aging knees are finding it harder to continue the duck-unders in what I have going.  It was  a feasible thing for quite a while, but has been getting to be a chore so much lately that I wasn't operating the layout very much.  The duck-unders

Deb and I saw this traveling through Lansing, Iowa a couple days ago on an outing:

George Booth posted this photo in the Weekly Photo Fun thread titled -

I have been able to snatch a little time here and there this summer to work on this really neat project, upgrading the venerable standard Atlas 704 Signal Tower HO kit using a laserboard  upgrade kit from Vector Cut:

http://www.vectorcut.com/RR.htm

I first learned of this item through a post here on MRH:

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/19937

I ordered it last winter and have now been able to work on it.

When I first saw the articles in the April and May 2009 issues of Model Railroader by the late Dean Freytag, I knew I wanted to build it and I knew it would be right for Blue Island on my layout. It seemed like such a large project, I didn't get to it until 2014 after retirement, and it was a dead-of-winter project taking 150 hours and over 1,300 pieces of styrene sheet, strip, and structural shapes.

Needing an HO scale roof-top water tank for an industrial building and having nothing on hand, I decided to build one from material available.

I finally finished a huge household project, a bathroom remodel.  This was a complete tear-out, down to the studs and joists with relocation of the tub and vanity and creating a closet space.  It really turned out well and now I once again may have some time for some model railroad pursuits.

When I left off, i was working on some structures and track right-of-way.  I installed some fencing now between the buildings and track.  First is a post type fence to keep vehicles from parking too close to the track along a tavern and gas station.