Dad...how long did you spend on the last layout?

Adam recently asked me that question as I was showing him the progress I had made ballasting all the track. It was a fair question since most of his pre-teen years were spent watching the previous layout come to life and in less than a year, I have gone from benchwork to running trains.
Our last move was in 2000 and I had originally planned to build a train in the entire basement. Four kids and limited time to work on it meant that was impractical. Bruce and I had lost touch so I was on my own to create a trackplan which took about 3 years and ultimately was a pretty simple point-to-point with staging yards. Another year or two for benchwork, a few years for cork and track, etc. To some degree my interest (or availability) waxed and waned and I needed to invest in almost everything brand new, I had a couple of locomotives and a lot of rolling stock but had not taken the DCC plunge yet (I knew I wanted to do this layout in DCC). I had some track but had to piece a large number of switches so I broke the purchase over time. I remember thinking each stage as being difficult - benchwork (I am terrible at measure twice cut once), electrical, ballasting, etc. Every step I did some reading and research, figured out how I would do it (sky backdrops comes to mind), try it, get frustrated, walk away for a while and then try again.
I had my first in September 2011 - yes, eleven years after we had moved it. We had a few problems but it was the first time I really tried to "run trains" and use car cards and waybills. It was a blast! We had a few more operating sessions but I did not get much more done on the scenery. In about 6 months I was tearing out the layout in sections for the new house.
It took a little over a year to come up with a trackplan for the new space - Bruce was a huge help in cutting down the track planning time, since it's his design! I also dabbled with multi-deck options and staging yards in the main part of the garage before setting on the current loop layout. A couple of weeks in December 2013 of lighter-than-usual work allowed me to get the benchwork pretty much done. I had a lot of the track I needed so an order of some cork and a few flex track and I was on the way. I realized I had a lot of materials - wire, DCC, ballast, scenery, freight cars, engines - that I was making steady, and sometimes amazing - progress, Of course this kept me motivated.
I had not had an official operating session yet but I am close. Somewhere between 2 and 3 years in the new house and I will be running trains again. A whole lot faster that the 11 years at the last place!