Tagged and Released.

We hit the "secret spot" again this past Friday. I ended up empty handed, but D landed this really nice 32" spot. She had been previously tagged, but he'll report her ID to DNR so they can track her location. Not that it matters, but you get a free T-Shirt out of the deal too. This fish was landed, again, with a root beer colored tube jig, and it ran out damn near a full spool and took some real work to revive once it finally gave in. He had to drag her out to deeper water to get her moving again, but she eventualy swam off under her own power. Not ten minutes later he landed another, slightly larger one. I wasn't so lucky. I spooked one with a bad cast, and had some poor casting attempts at others. This sight fishing for Reds takes some skill, and I'm begining to think that I have very little of what skills are required. I'll keep trying, and will keep you posted on my progress.

Master Bathroom Remodel (read "REBUILD")

I got tired of the disgusting bathroom and ripped it out, thinking that the vast expanse of emptiness and the inconvenience of four people sharing one bathroom might help to motivate me. It has. So far I have entirely gutted the space, which included cutting out the fiberglass tub enclosure, removing the commode, and ripping out a horribly designed closet that cut the bathroom in half. I then had to level the floor, which essentially meant skinning it with 1/4 inch OSB. I then ripped out the really, really bad drywall job since I needed to reroute the plumbing and electrical anyway. I'll have Anthony come in and finish it off when I'm ready to close it up. We plan to tile a traditional black and white octagonal mosaic, with subway tile on the shower wall. This is going to be a traditional bathroom design, in keeping with the character of the house. I hope that it will go quickly once the drywall is completed. The large claw foot tub will be the center piece of the room, set on an angle. Exposed chrome fillers and drain piping will accent the installation. In the corner I have framed in a shower wall which will feature an exposed chrome shower fixture with a separate Victorian hand shower attachment. All of the fixtures will be the same victorian style chrome. As with past projects, we put together a spend plan and budget and try to adhere to it as best that we can. So far we have done pretty good sticking to the plan. Some of the fixtures are shown below...