burst of fish

the week off has been pretty fantastic so far. spent the first few days working on the house - prepped for radiator modifications, worked on some annoying framing details, got some saw horses & other miscellaneous tools. dropped dan off at the airport for his band reunion/family Thanksgiving in STL. had a wonderful Thanksgiving at Caretaker Farm w/ katie & anna. i survived 9 hours of driving by myself - something i didn't think i would be able to do. i got lost a few times which extended the drive by 2 hours. oh windy country roads, your poor signage & fog were frustrating! i had a wonderful time chatting, hiking, cooking, eating, sitting by the fire & hanging out with girls. i miss spending time with girl friends. oh my, it was fun! i'm so looking forward to the maunz's return to the b'more region & the future success of their farm. (they're looking for farm names - so if you think of any GOOD ones, send them my way.)

the remainder of this weekend will be spent resolving all remaining bathroom issues - choosing fixures & finishing some framing details. the fixture choosing is stressing me out a bit. of course we want the bathroom to look nice & we want to like it a lot. but i also feel strongly that we should reuse existing things. i'm not yet sure how to balance my interest in being environmentally friendly/not wasteful & our interest in having a great bathroom. i'm not bold enough to try recycling a bunch of junky old tile into a fancy mosaic - though that would be cool, not my forte. i've been going back & forth about what to do w/ the bathroom floor. should we leave the old subfloor down and re-tile or should we pull it up in the hopes of finding hardwood floor underneath? (i'm pretty sure it's hiding under there somewhere...) i'm leaning towards hardwood exploration. probably a similar amount of work to salvage the floor but we wouldn't be purchasing new materials.

can't forget about the bathroom before, during & after pics. this was a few weeks ago. we've since removed the plumbing stack (thank you youtube & home depot tool rental), built a new wall & moved the doorway.






and a photo of the front for Mom Maunz (taken by the previous owner, Lino):

knockin' it all down

we've been homeowners for about 9 days now. it's exciting & nerve-wracking. anxiety kicks in when we're tearing things out & i realize the full extent of the work we need to do. thank god we bought a small house! so the above photo represents the state of our bathroom yesterday. i'm having some trouble w/ the camera - otherwise i'd post the after photo. we've torn out the entire bathroom - removed all the fixtures, tile, trim, one whole wall... lots of work. the demo reminded me how much i hate plaster. it sucks. it's a pain to tear off & a pain to clean up - so heavy! ugh. my shoulder was feeling fantastic until i sledged a few studs outta the way. i'm always amazed at the quality of 50+ year old carpentry. the studs are actual 2x4s, some with the bark still on. i have no idea what size the framing nails are but they're probably 4" long. crazy! i can't believe people used to drive those by hand. the carpenters must've suffered from some serious arthritis & joint problems.

what else? dan scooped water out of the toilet w/ a shot glass (haven't purchased a shop vac yet) & showered in the wacky basement shower. our bathroom has been reduced to a bucket that i seem to visit often... kinda glad we're not living there just yet. we also met a really nice neighbor who's a wood worker.

spent this past week in talladega, alabama w/ my supervisees. it was SOOO nice to get out of here, away from work, our smelly-ass apartment & this crazy house we now own. i lucked out & got a room to myself (unheard of), had amazing water pressure & plenty of hot water. um... 3 square meals a day that i didn't have to prepare. some lame & less lame workshops. it was pretty good. got back Friday afternoon. my work's supposed to be moving to our new building at the end of the week... ugh. i'm imagining a stressful week. but looking forward to coming home & having lots of projects to work on, which i think might help me turn off the work stress.

wondering if we'll take on floor refinishing...