We had a beautiful weekend here in Maryland. It appears that spring might really be here, which makes for much nicer outings with the kids visiting the new house. They have been so excited to visit daddy on Saturday's and go through and inspect all the new changes. This week they saw the rough-in plumbing, and daddy marking where all the light fixtures go in the house for the electrician. Keith also worked on framing the walls for the basement stairway. Another busy week lies ahead with electrical rough-in, as well as getting the basement and screened-in porch doors hung.

We don't have any house pictures to show you this week, but we do have lots of pictures from Julia's 5th birthday party. As you can see, she had a great time surrounded by her friends and family and lots of pink and purple. What more could any five year old girl want in life?

To view the slideshow with comments, please click on the note icon on the bottom left corner of the pictures.

A busy week, and a lot to show for it!

Well, despite the rain that did not want to go away last Thursday, we were still able to get the garage, front porch, and basement pad concrete poured last Friday. The concrete looks very good and yet one more thing to check off the "things to do" list. We also got our location survey approved last week, hired a plumber, ordered the kitchen cabinets, got the master bath in place, framed the kneewall in the kitchen, ordered bath and shower fixtures, marked the kitchen layout for the plumber, framed the pantry shelves, framed the crawlspace and basement doors, and had a birthday party for yours truly (whew!) It was a busy, but productive week. In our spare time, Keith also helped Julia build a leprachaun trap for school (I knew I married an engineer for a good reason!) As you can see, she enjoyed working on that project very much, especially adding her own sense of style. Andrew had fun playing around this weekend, too. It appears from the pictures that he doesn't think his mommy should be the only one with red hair in the Merranko household!

Another productive weekend

Another productive weekend. The HVAC guys came in an finished the whole house on Saturday. They put in all the duct work so that after we move-in, Keith can install the geothermal unit. Keith also finished all the prep work for the garage and patio concrete. We hope to get it poured on Friday. It will be nice to be able to walk into the house via the front porch step, rather than a couple of cinder blocks on the ground.

We are also ordering the kitchen cabinets soon, so we have been doing a lot of kitchen planning. Being that our house is arts and crafts style, the cabinets will be made out of quarter sawn white oak. We are having a custom woodworker who is Amish make our cabinets and the bathroom vanities. In the slideshow this week, I have included some pictures of the kitchen drawings and some additional kitchen items. I have attached notes with each picture that you can see by clicking on the icon on the lower left of the slideshow pictures.