Tag: Reuse
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Stumping
As political pundits’ newscycle turns to election stumping, our workcycle turns to ash stumping. The inevitable next step in our current homegrown lumber undertaking is to transform the stumps (leftover from five removed ash trees) into mulch and then prepare the ground for grass seeding in the spring. After felling five ash trees in the…
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Yard Sale Postmortem
One week ago today we celebrated Essex Day with the mother of all yard sales. This recycling and reuse extravaganza was cohosted with several friends who were similarly interested in downsizing their possessions. If something’s not being used regularly, pass it on! Today it’s time for a quick yard sale postmortem. Prologue For prologue, this:…
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After Wake Surfing
Day’s end. After wake surfing… I’m overcome with gratitude as we head home following an end-of-day, end-of-weekend, end-of-yard-sale wake surf. Thank you. Thank you, Susan, Denise, John, and Cheri, for joining us in a colossal re-homing extravaganza (aka “yard sale”) for Essex Day. Thank you, Pam, Tony, Supi, Glen, and Peter for helping us pull…
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Re-Homing Exterior Door
In the spirit of reducing, reusing, recycling, and repurposing, it pleases us that Tony Foster will be re-homing this exterior door from the icehouse. After months of icehouse rehabilitation, this door is no longer needed. But it still has plenty of life left in it. Given Tony’s commitment to this project since day one, it…
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Finding Freudenfreude
Last week Tony, Hroth, and Pam all shared overlapping updates on garapa, elm, and ash upcycling progress. Virtually concurrent texts and photos sent by all three. Two of them spoke with me by telephone. All of them sounded 100% in sync. No griping. No grumbling. No blaming. And no complaints, frustrations, or regrets. They were…
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Installing Garapa Decking 2022
Last Friday, I teased a recap of our recent deck rebuild — or more specifically an overview of installing garapa decking on the newly rebuilt deck — but then I proceeded to dive headlong into a 2008-9 decking-with-garapa flashback. Sometimes it’s helpful to discover the backstory before plunging into the present. Here was my swaggering introduction (before…
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Garapa Decking 2008-2009
I left you wondering, patiently waiting for a couple of weeks after the “Deck Rebuild” update. I promised a post specifically focusing on the garapa decking, but days turned into weeks, and no garapa gallery. Sorry. Rest assured it was an act of omission, my friends, not an act of commission. (Maybe “fall” earned its…
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Clearing Out Historic Icehouse
Sixteen years after plunging into renovating Rosslyn we are… finally tackling the looong postponed icehouse rehabilitation. Sweet sixteen. (Source: Redacting Rosslyn v2.0 – Rosslyn Redux) In the image above you can see a notable improvement from previous images of the interior of Rosslyn’s historic icehouse. This underutilized outbuilding had become a storage space in the…
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Deconstruction and Reuse is Child’s Play
Child’s play, you say? Legos are a perfect proof of concept when it comes to children’s instinct to construct and then deconstruct, reuse instead of demolish. Children intuitively understand adaptive reuse: Legos teach reuse at a young age. You build, take apart and rebuild using the same pieces. You wouldn’t throw away your Legos would…