The Housegleaners: A DIY Freestyle Fixerupper Remodel Blog Focused On Salvage, Reuse, and Upcycling

Way back at the end of April, I was up on the roof patching a leak when our resident river otter waddled through the side yard and across the road to Hood Canal. Not sure what it does in our backyard, but it's pretty boggy back there so it's not too surprising and we saw them come through at least three times this spring. The posted speed limit at this bend in North Shore Road is 20 mph but I see people routinely doing double that, so I vowed to make an OTTER XING sign to hopefully improve their chances of reaching the other side. I thought it would be quick and easy, but the scrap plywood I used was pretty rough, so I used a whole container of wood filler to smooth it out. It took a couple of passes--fill, sand, repeat. I was hoping to find reflective paint, but this off-the-shelf oil-based yellow enamel seemed close enough. I bought gloss sunburst yellow and flat black to enhance the contrast. Enamel is sticky and it took a while to get even coverage, applied with a foam b...

Sunny and Patchouli are littermates, born in a Minnesota barn, adopted by us at about 5 months. For kitties who've tasted the freedom to roam, they seem content being indoor only. They have to be, because cats are not the top predators they think they are. There's plenty that could get them here: eagles, coyotes, maybe even a mountain lion--though a tough raccoon would be bad enough. All the neighbors have warned us to keep them inside. They know first-hand the feline body count is high. But we still want them to have some form of outdoor access, so we're converting the back upper deck into a catio by building up and screening it in.    Note the gray (formerly white) fascia board where railing posts are attached. (Foreshadowing!) The balustrade segments were attached with six or so nails each.  Easiest way to remove was to cut them out with recip saw. They'll be reinstalled later between taller posts. I don't expect anyone to watch the whole thing, but too many vide...

I got this manual push mower off a free list. It was described as "functions fine" but it didn't. When I looked to youtube for how-to repair answers, I didn't find any so I figured it out and thought it might be worth sharing what I learned. I'm not claiming to be an expert and these are probably not best practices for safety, so don't follow my example too closely. If you have advice for how this could be done better or with more accurate vocabulary, please comment below. Thanks and watch your fingers!

 

Twenty-five years before The Housegleaners blog--and well before blogs even existed--I started photo journaling online with Picture of the Day , which continues to grow and creep forward like a glacier with the weight of half a lifetime behind it. Things were on hold here for a week or so as I laid in bed getting over My First Covid ™️ . Right before that happened, I closed the book on this trilogy, an epic saga of discovery, disappointment, and ultimate triumph. Soon to be a major motion picture!   (((Click images to visit original pages with extra photo links; best viewed on laptop.)))  

After spending most of the past two weeks replacing inefficient aluminum windows and doing a lot of shuffling and reorganizing of materials to make space, today I shifted focus indoors to start getting a sense of what things might look like when we finally get around to finishes. Because so much of what we're doing at this stage is basic structural improvement, we've been resigned to living with the shoddy unfinished drywall look of a remodel that was abandoned midstream. But because we have guests coming, we thought it would be nice to tidy up the west-facing sitting room that's adjacent to the kitchen. The dangling cutout to the left of the heater was particularly irksome both as eyesore and source of drafts, so I started the day by taping and mudding it as well as the seams and corners of that wall (but not along the ceiling as that will be vaulted later). I also finally got around to cleaning up the rough edge from when I tore up the waterdamaged linoleum floor. I used ...

Things happened fast here last Fall. So fast I forgot I even made this video of a late November weekend trip to move some stuff out and hang a couple of interior doors scored via craigslist/free . It wasn't the most productive visit as I spent a good amount of time by the water, watching a seal circle in on a bunch of languid salmon that were so close to shore I could have grabbed 'em. This video is kind of long and slow. Shots linger in silence. Not much happens. That's sort of the point. I'd been juggling so many things on a tight schedule, racing back and forth from Seattle, that I needed a breather. And a big part of why we moved here is to tune in to nature and settle into its rhythms. And, outside of being on a Washington State Ferry, where else are you going to hear the safety announcement in its entirety? To those who sit through patiently to the end, I salute you!  Doesn't it feel nice to slow down?

If eyes are the windows to the soul, what are windows? The eyes of a home? Like eyes, they do open and close. And when they're 60-year old single pane aluminum frame jobs, they even weep. This condensation is a bad sign of how inefficient they are, and the corresponding high heating bills are enough to make us cry. We should have replaced them first thing, but I got sort of strung along by this guy who kept dangling some nice windows initially advertised as "free" in front of me, and even after I agreed to pay for them he never set a price or timeline, so Sarah finally sourced various bargains on five used double pane 4x6 vinyls--two picture and three sliders.  This is the second one I replaced in the past week. The first went a lot easier but in any event the effect on the indoor temperature was immediately apparent. It feels warmer already and the heaters are running much less frequently. Winning! It was all handtools on deck for window extraction and to expand rough o...

The soil here is pretty compacted and not very rich, so to grow food Sarah is relying on hügel beds and planter boxes. Still had some salvaged cedar fence boards left over after building the first planter box , and for the framing I decided to reüze some pressure treated 2x6 deck joists that we found discarded in the weeds here. I know they were deck joists because they were rife with screws standing out about an inch, about one every three inches. I set up a cutting and assembly station outside. At first I thought I'd just leave the screws in, and I cut the legs of the box to length in such a way to avoid the screws. But because the box would be lined with plastic sheeting, I decided to remove the screw tops after all to avoid tearing the lining. Cutting scores of screws with an angle grinder might seem laborious but it took me longer to edit this video than it did to zip them off. Like the first time, I cut the cedar planks to length and assembled them into panels which I then p...

  The Optimistic Owners Prior to uS (OOPS) got as far as drywalling the stairwell, but not installing a light. There was, however, power to the switch box and wire to the attic with extra length at the end, so there was flexibility as to placement of pendant light. All I needed now was a scaffold, and wouldn't you know it there was one leaning right there in the hall--a solid wood door I picked up free to replace the hollow core ones that came with the place. It spanned the gap beautifully, doorknob and all, and instantly attracted the cats. Stepping in the middle of it might've been dicey, but standing at the edge provided better footing for drilling the 4" hole for retrofit ceiling fixture. Cats on the ladder impeded my progress, but eventually they let me climb back into the attic to poke the Romex down through the hole. After that is was short work to wire and hang the light, an antique I picked up off a free table years ago. One of those items you take a shine to and ...

We've been going pretty hard lately but today Sarah and I both ran out of gas and lethargy overtook us. Didn't do much except burn the brushpile that's been accumulating in the driveway over the past few weeks of yard work. We'd prefer to compost it, either here or municipally, but a lot of it was invasive plants that nobody would take. As a human, I'm genetically predisposed to find fire alluring, fascinating, and hypnotic. As a child pyromaniac, I narrowly avoided burning down our garage, and more than once melted my sneakers stomping out runaway fires my friends and I had started in the name of science. I'm more careful now. Today's burn was difficult to start as the pile consisted mostly of blackberry vines, alder roots and shoots, wild rose (sounds charming but isn't), and scotch broom, much of it still green and none of it what you might call "dry." But all it took was a cardboard box, some kindling, and a blowtorch . Strategy was to conc...

Woke up unsure about what to do today, ended up taking apart the old goat pen and chicken coop.  It was a well-constructed enclosure, about 20x40 feet, but of no use to us. It could have been the basis of a deer-proof garden--a good start with 6' high hog wire firmly stapled to 13 evenly spaced pressure treated 4x4 posts, 10-footers dug two feet deep, set in concrete. All sturdy and straight, it was almost a pity to dismantle but it's the shadiest part of the yard and it was best to open up the space. With Dogyu bar (aka whaletail), hammer, and end nips, I removed the staples. At first I did each individually, using cat's paw to pry them out one by one. Then I realized it went quicker levering the hammer claw under the wire; this method worked on all but the largest, stoutest staples. I did it carefully because the wire will be reused to protect the hugel beds and trees Sarah is planting. I considered digging out the posts, but that seemed too hard and possibly bonkers. I...