Geothermal and Paint-what could be better?

It was a very exciting weekend at Green Glass Road. To start off, Buddy (our HVAC man) placed the ground source heat pump, attached the duct work, and installed the condensate pump. Meanwhile, Keith installed the control circuit for the ground loop pump, the thermostat, the filtered intake registers, and began installation of the PVC pipe to connect the pump center to the ground loop and heat pump. This week David (our electrician) will come to do some work and Keith will finish up with the PVC pipe. What this all means is that we are very close to having air/heat in the house. Very exciting since June has been a pretty warm (and humid) month and I am sure there is even more to come in July and August!

Keith, Ronnie and Craig also did a lot of painting this weekend. Starting with the ceilings and closets and then moving on to the colors yesterday. While I am very excited about the geothermal, I have to admit I was almost equally exctied to see the colors on the walls yesterday. While my mom jokingly chides my color palate for being "too boring", I am happy that the subtle colors blend well together. Neither me, or my husband are huge risk takers (or painters) so something I can live with for 20 years or so is right up my alley! The colors we used in the house were from Valspar. The names of each should appear in the slideshow if you click on the picture. Not surprisingly, the purple walls belong to Julia :)

Speaking of my girly, girl, she had a great weekend catching frogs and playing with them. Over the weekend she must have touched at least eight frogs at her Grandma and Grandpa's house and then one more at our house yesterday. Apparently, she must think that if she holds enough frogs she will turn into a princess too!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to a wonderful father and husband! He certainly has done his job to earn his keep this year, hasn't he?! He had several Father's Day celebrations this year including, "Donuts for Dads" at Julia and Andrew's school, and a family party complete with apple pie made with the kiddos.

Number One Daddy Father's Day 5x7 folded card

Unique party invitations and announcements by Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

This weekend was mostly dedicated to digging the trench, laying the pipe, and covering up the pipe for the geothermal heating/cooling in our house. Because we are using wood and Marmoleum (linoleum), and neither can be installed if the humidity in the house is out of whack, this is our top priority right now. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks after a visit from our HVAC guy and electrician, it will be up and running. Despite the heat, the install went fairly well this weekend. However, the backhoe operator (not my husband) hit our siding near the end of the digging on Friday. So Keith and Craig needed to repair three boards this weekend. Lucky for us, we had exactly that many boards left over in the basement! The backhoe operator and the company were very sorry and helpful, so I knew it would be fine in the end. That being said, wasn't it just last week that I was publicly celebrating the end of the siding project for Keith? Hmmm, maybe I need to watch what I say on this blog :)

Ronnie and Craig also worked on touching up the primer in the house where the drywallers had made some touch-ups this week. If all goes well, color will start going on the walls next weekend!

Well, I think my husband can now officially declare that today was one of the best days of his life because he finished the Hardie board siding :) It looks great, and I hope it will prove to be worth all his effort for many years to come! In addition to completing the siding, he finished trimming out the posts and half wall in the screened in porch. Lastly, he got through priming all but two walls in the house before he ran out of primer.

In other exciting news, Julia graduated from preschool on Friday. I cannot believe we will be moving into a new house in a couple months, AND we will have a daughter in kindergarten!

Either I am getting old, or time really is moving faster!

And on to painting, painting and more painting...

The weather cooled down at the end of the week so the house did not feel like an oven like it had one week earlier. That meant that it was time to move inside and start getting some paint on the walls. On Saturday, Keith, his mom, Craig and Ronnie got 80% of the primer up on the walls. It really does change the whole look of the house to have some paint on the walls! Today, Keith and Craig worked on getting a lot of miscellaneous items done, as well as getting 1/2 the siding on the interior porch up. They have about 20 boards left to go up next weekend and then he will be all done with putting up the Hardie board siding. A great relief, indeed.

Lots of house progress and pictures from our vacation

As some of you may know, I was gone for two weeks on a road trip with the kiddos. We left on Friday, May 13, and returned home on Memorial Day. We visited:
Grandma and Grandpa at the mountain house
Laura, John and Alex in Milwaukee, WI
Karen, Andy and Brunson in Chicago, IL
Michael, Rachel, Everett and Rory in La Crosse, WI

We also visited to:
the Betty Brinn Children's Musuem
Safe House restaurant
Milwaukee County Zoo
Chicago Children's Museum
Shedd Aquarium
and the Rainforest Cafe in Chicago with my friend, Pete
Chicago Nature Museum
River Museum and Aquarium in Dubuque, IA

It was a very busy two weeks to say the least. We spent one week in Galena, IL at a rental house with my parents, brother's, sisters-in-law, niece's and nephew as well as my aunt Karen. The kids loved seeing their cousins, aunts/uncles and of course, Grammy and Grampy. There are lots of pictures of our adventure in the slideshow this week.

Keith stayed in Maryland and worked on the new house. In those two weeks, he finished the majority of the siding, had the septic installed, finished the soffit, trimmed out the porches and dug out the corner of the basement foundation to fix a leak.

A wonderful weekend

Well, we had another very busy, and productive, weekend at the Merranko house. It all started on Friday with a wonderful Mother's Day celebration at the kid's school for mommy. The kids were very excited to give me their homemade gifts as well as eat the cookies that they made for mommy :) Then, it was home for Andrew's third birthday celebration. He had a great birthday filled with lots of loud toys and cake and ice cream. Perfect for a three year old boy! Saturday was spent playing with lots of new toys while Keith, Ronnie and Craig worked on finishing the siding on the north end of the house by the kids bedrooms. Sunday again filled with more tractors for Andrew during a special birthday outing with Grandma and Grandpa where he managed to bring home another toy tractor :) While he was busy testing out the merchandise at Tractor Supply, Julia and I went to survey the progress at the new house. The three men made great progress on the siding today and finished all the plank on the west side of the house. Next weekend will be spent putting up the shake on the gable and moving to the next side of the house. Finally, we had a wonderful Mother's Day celebration at Lorraine and Bob's house, made even more wonderful because I didn't have to do a darn thing!

Garage doors-check, porch celling-check, siding and trim...in progress

Well, we now have spiffy garage doors where we used to have plywood! That sure does make life easier for my husband. He can now open them up with a handle, rather than screwing and unscrewing the panels when he needs to get in the garage. As you will see in the slideshow, Andrew would also like to open them-or at least hang on the hardware for awhile. In addition to the drywall that was finished this week, Keith and Craig also got the screened-in porch celling up. I think it looks great and I look forward to many afternoons lounging on my chair staring at that celling before I take a nap! :)

They also worked on putting-up more siding, trim, and freize board(and yes, "freize" is actually spelled that way). The siding and trim is taking more time than Keith is used to since vinyl goes up so quickly. That being said, we like the way the finished product is turning out. For those of you who are wondering why there are white spots on parts of the lap siding-do not fear. It is just the cement residue dust and it will be washed-off when this is all installed.