ALTERATIONS.Tenant agrees not to alter the premises without prior written consent of Landlord.All changes made by Tenant must be reversible and property must be restored to original condition at end of tenancy, unless other arrangements have been made with Landlord.

I eventually want to be able to acquire endangered properties or vessels and restore and preserve them.

This would be a landlord repair. or replace whatever is needed to secure the premises properly and restore to original condition.

If you purchased supplies for multiple projects to restore them to working order, that sounds like a repair to me.

I love the thought of restoring a neglected home to it's former glory or to a new & improved version.

Southern Pro Restoration.  

Noncompliance and property destruction seems to be good reasons for either an fine/fee or deduction from the security deposit for the costs to restore the property/land back to the original status.

If you want to reuse your VA benefit for the next house, then you will need to refi to a conventional loan so you can restore your entitlement.  

Even though it was literally just a small fire contained in the oven, damage cost of $20k, (restoration scam is a topic for another thread).But if tenant doesn't have that, your insurance company will squarely look at you to foot the bill, for a "small accident"

You just have to be careful that it is not actually an improvement, betterment, or restoration and that it is actually truly just a routine maintenance or minor repair when you do this.