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.

The house that Ebay, Craigslist and an auction built!

This was a very exciting a productive week at Green Glass Road. First, we were able to purchase a little more than 2/3 of our wood flooring at a significant discount from a wholesaler that was going out of business. Thanks to Keith's co-worker, Bob, for tipping us off to that auction. It is a beautiful color, and very high quality (see picture in the slideshow). The only downside is that we are now storing 1300 sq. ft. of it in our current home until it is installed this summer. Oh well, you get what you pay for, right? I can tell you, my husband is NOT going to be paying for storage fees :)

In other news this week, all the windows were installed. Very exciting to see them all up. Keith and Ronnie got them in very quickly on Saturday, so they spent most of the rest of the weekend prepping the garage and the front porch for the concrete that we hope can get poured next week-weather permiting. The weather has been crazy here, as everywhere else I am hearing. It will be 70 today, but last week we had flakes of snow. Overall, it has been a rather windy winter, with some really cold days, but not much snow (especially compared to our record breaking year in 2010). I am enjoying the warm weather with the kids, and the days which are slowly getting longer.

Julia finished level one swimming on Saturday, and she will begin level two this week. While she was doing her lessons a couple of weeks ago, Andrew and I were eating a snack and playing around with the camera. As you can see, he seems to like the camera quite a bit!

Day 180 something and counting

A lot is getting done on the house right now, but some of it just cannot be seen in our pictures. In addition to the time Keith is spending at the house, we are also spending countless hours planning and meeting with various subcontractors. It is all going well, but definitely keeping us both busy.

Not to say that you can't see our house and landscape change from one week to the next, but the amount of pictures we have been taking is certainly smaller now than it was in the fall. This week Keith did more work on prepping the garage, grading, and framing inside.

The kids and I stopped by the house yesterday after Julia's swimming lessons. They enjoyed wandering around the house trying to figure out the different spaces.

What do I love this Valentine's Day? Dirt and electricity...

During the past weekend, Keith spent time with Ronnie putting up the interior top plates, as well as grading the soil around the house. As you can see in the slideshow this week, the entrance was installed for the power, and today it will be inspected. With any luck this week they will come and get power hooked-up to the house. More likely, however, we will have power in the next two weeks. That will make a huge difference for Keith since he will no longer need to take the generator on the truck each weekend. The remaining dirt piles also got fewer and smaller this weekend as Keith was completing a good portion of the final grading. It is neat for me to see how the house really has a different perspective with the backfill properly in place. Who knew I could like dirt so much? :)

The final picture in this week's slideshow is the kiddos, of course. A little collage of our Valentine's Day picture photoshoot. As I have said many times, to get one good picture of the kids, you need to take A LOT. Here is just a sampling of the ones that led up to "the one". Happy Valentine's Day!

Five months down, six to go.

Sorry for the late blog post this week, but I was too busy watching my home state football team will the Superbowl to post anything on Sunday. Go Pack Go!

Keith worked by himself at the house this weekend, mostly getting the rest of the studs in and starting on digging the trench for the electric. We hired an electrical contractor who will be coming in to get our service panel in so we will have power at the house. What a luxury for Keith to not have to haul the generator back and forth every weekend! Of course, my dad built the shell of our house with no power tools, so he would say that Keith already has it easy :)

Since we didn't have any exciting house pictures to show you this week, the slideshow is just pictures of us enjoying the Superbowl party with family. Andrew was happy to wear the Steelers shirt, but he really wanted to say "Go Pack Go" all night.