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

Took a break to remind myself of what lured us here in the first place. It's been trebly bleak of late: Sarah out of state, winter's shortest days, and persistent rain. Yesterday afternoon the sun broke through but I had to run an errand. Today, unexpectedly, the sun made an encore cameo and I seized the opportunity to try out the wetsuit Sarah gave me for Christmas. It was smack dab between high high tide (8:25 AM 12.6 feet) and high low tide (2:29 PM 6.8 feet), a good time to get in at the park. The wetsuit fit and kept me warm but my bare hands ached in the 46 degree F water. Floating on my back buoyed by the neoprene, I was able to keep my hands above the surface, like the otters I'm told frequent this inlet. Unlike them, I might invest in gloves. From sunbeams and sparkly water to the damp dirt of crawlspace beneath the bathroom to wrap pipes, emplace ground plastic, and insulate between floor joists. I prefer Rockwool batts because they're easy to install/de-inst...

The cats pretty consistently wake us up at 7:30, and they did so today but with more ruckus than usual as they took a boisterous victory lap over the mouse they killed overnight and left under the bed. It's tempting to say they've started earning their keep, but they keep us. Their antics keep us laughing all day, no matter how hard the work gets, and today did get kind of heavy. Started easy though by setting up a dishwashing station on the back deck: soaking tub, soapy sponge in its own bucket, and rinse basin with a touch of bleach. A satisfying short term solution but we're jonesing for a functional kitchen and today's efforts brought us one small giant step closer to that glorious dream. The once and future sink. This house is on a community well, water main connected to a pumphouse down the road. But it used to be on its own well out back, and so there were not one but two defunct pressure tanks cluttering the crawlspace under the kitchen. This is a concern beca...