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):