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

    Have we gone too far? The cat branch got a new vertical element, a floor-to-ceiling limb we wedged in adjacent to the original horizontal corner piece and fastened with a couple of long screws so when wet wood dries and shrinks it stays in place. We expected Sunny and Patchouli would leap from one to the other, but it proved too challenging, so we added another piece to connect them. It worked! Aside from providing a natural-ish playground for the kitties, we like the indoor forest vibe. Who knows where it will end? But one haunting question remains: are we bringing in pests that will eat the house?

  This place came with the three things I most wanted when I was 10 and my parents dragged me around looking at houses they couldn't afford: a fireplace, spiral stairs, and a pool table. The pool table will eventually go in the woodshop, where I'll build a protective removable top to use as table saw outfeed table. For now its ponderous bulk squats immovable in the living room, covered by tarp and piece of plywood for use as work station, though mostly it just collects stuff. Sarah claimed this bespoke scratching post off a free list and we've been planning to add a vertical element above for the cats to extend their climbing. First thought was shelf with a hole in it, then that evolved into a tree branch spanning the corner, inspired in part by Hundertwasser , an Austrian architect who planted trees in apartments. To bring the outside in, we cut a section off a felled birch out back. (We checked if birch is toxic for cats. It's not.) [ Correction : it's actually Al...