Things I would have thought would have been fixed by now

We are now entering the second half of our first year at the house and I'm finding myself a bit surprised at what's done, and what is not. Why should I be surprised, right? I am the "lead contractor" in the project so I should be where I want to be. Well, uh, I underestimated somethings, overestimated others. And as I said here, there has been some time issues.

The broken garage door back in November.
It still looks this way. 

My biggest disappointment is the lack of progress on the garage door, which remains permanently open. The biggest obstacle is the lack of a clear path mainly due to being overwhelmed by opinions on what can/should be done. To recap, the door is broken, and likely not salvageable, I've been told by several that repairing a garage door is no place for an amateur to tread so I've called in some friends and that's where the opinions start. The issue is with the attic access which sits in the middle of  ceiling causing the installation of an opener difficult. An opener is probably needed since the door is so massive but the practical, cheapskate side of me figured that Cindy could open a lightweight aluminum door herself. If I mention that I get a weird look from people, although Cindy, being the good sport that she is trusts my judgement on that. I was just recently advised that you CAN install an offset garage door opener so I guess the next step is to call in a reputable garage door company and get an estimate. Yikes!

Little things keep getting delayed too. I purchased new LED security lighting to replace the old incandescent motion detector flood lights on the garage (see picture above, in the upper left). The old lights seem to come on randomly, day and night with motion only occasionally being the cause. It's a simple job but I tend to work on things like this when I'm home alone and I have no one available to help me turn the proper breaker off in the basement. Of course, nothing in our electrical box is labeled and I'm way too lazy to throw a switch, climb the stairs and look to see if the lights have gone off. I realize this is an extremely poor excuse, even more so now that I've written it, but at the moment I always manage to find something else to do.

I would have thought I would have the kitchen painted by now. I repaired the huge holes in  one wall and painted the ceiling back before the appliances showed up, but have made no further progress. Part of it was I got discouraged when we had a bathroom leak that damaged the ceiling and decided to hold off until I was sure I had fixed the leak. Well, after caulking everything in sight apparently I have fixed it but I have since moved on. Cindy has given me a pass on that and prefers I work on the den next.

A recent Sunday morning.

One thing we have managed to do is enjoy our porch. Like the fireplace we enjoyed last winter, the porch was a big selling point for the house. If it were up to Cindy, we would eat our dinner out there every evening. I prefer the mornings, with a cool breeze and a much quieter neighborhood, often just the birds keeping us company. Very relaxing.