Author: Javier
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Our new butcher block countertops
We decided on butcher block countertops for the new kitchen; they are affordable, fit our style, and are perfect for our level of DIY skills. Going forward we will have to take good care of them; the countertops are properly sealed, but we have to be cautious when it comes to letting spills sit for […]
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Painting kitchen cabinets: not for the faint of heart.
The cabinets were our first project on the kitchen reno list. Our cabinets were greasy from years of cooking without a vented stove and had painfully outdated hardware, but structurally they were sturdy and actually very nice. They were custom made from maple and extend all the way to the ceiling, which is something we […]
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Farewell to our 90s Kitchen
This year we finally decided to update our kitchen! Our house was built in the 1930s and the kitchen was likely renovated at some point in the 90s (I found a pocket calendar from 1993 stuck behind the countertops – my clue for a timeline guess). We are sure that the kitchen was pretty bitchin’ […]
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Our StoryCorps Experience
Almost 8 years ago, young Leslie and young Javi were walking around the Nashville Farmer’s market when we saw a renovated air stream in the parking lot with a big StoryCorps banner. We have always been big fans of NPR so we stopped by the air stream and learned that StoryCorps was posting up in […]
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Our New Plant-Based Diet
I come from a country where, like America, eating red meat is the way to go. A few years back before Penny arrived we decided to try to go vegetarian. At that time we were worried about Leslie’s cholesterol, which was pretty high. Leslie has a family history of heart disease, and despite the fact […]
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DIY Kitchen Nook with reclaimed lumber – Part #2 / The Table
I have so many childhood memories of my home in Punta Arenas, Chile. One prominent memory is spending a ridiculous amount of time lying down on the kitchen’s peninsula in our home – for some reason I didn’t like to use chairs or sofas. It was huge table (at least young me thought so) made […]
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DIY Reclaimed lumber Kitchen Nook – Part #1 / Bench with storage
One of my objectives when I changed the floors of the second story of the house was to save as many of the old pine floor planks as possible with the idea that I could use the wood for other projects. The wood is old and dry, and although it’s not hardwood, I believe it […]
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Side Table made of Osage Orange
A few months back, a friend brought me a gift after he visited our local lumber yard. He found a cookie of a yellow/orange colored wood that he thought would be a nice piece to work with. I enjoy making tables with cookies, because you can really highlight the growth rings and you can see […]
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How Trench Composting Fixed My Garden Soil
The Los Rodriguez Mansion garden has officially exploded. When I started building this garden and ordered the soil, I was not impressed with the quality of the soil I received…to the point that I simply called it dirt. Soil entails having an ecosystem; fungi, bacteria, bugs, nutrients, organic matter, etc. living in harmony while facilitating […]
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Handmade Walnut Cookie Table
A cookie table is a table specialized to hold cookies…right? Ok yes, that too, but the name actually refers to the type of cut that was done to obtain the piece of wood. A wood cookie is a horizontal cut of the tree trunk – the view you need in order to count the growth […]
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Five Tips to Prevent Flooding in your House
Not everything in Los Rodriguez life is glamorous…actually, there is not that much glamour in our lives, period. We try to highlight the great times, but as Dr. House would say, life isn’t always sunshine and puppies! Up until last Friday it felt like it rained every single day for the past two weeks, which […]
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My Moravian Workbench
After preparing the woodshop space, I needed to build a woodworking bench. The important feature about the bench I wanted was portability. Many of the plans I saw online were for beautiful benches that would never move from the place where they were built. You want a sturdy bench, and in most cases sturdiness comes […]
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Javi’s Workshop
I have wanted a workshop in our house for a long time, but I haven’t found the right space. Our house in Louisville has a garage, but it is not in the kind of condition I’d need for a permanent wood shop. There are several holes on the walls, it is not insulated, and there […]
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Bilingual Parenting!
As we continue to prepare for the arrival of Penelope by fixing up the house, preparing the nursery, attending parenting classes, and trying to stay on top of details, we are also planning our communication strategy. As most people know, I am Chilean and English is my second language. I didn’t start learning English and speaking […]
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Fire pit seats
So, back to where I left off: I had these 5 huge logs in the backyard and I wanted seats for the fire pit. Since the logs were tall, using them “as is” was not an option, and if I could cut them each in half I would have double the amount of seats. I […]
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One person’s trash…another person’s project idea!
A couple of weeks ago our neighbor across the street decided to cut down a big tree from the front of her property. Well I think she decided anyway, I didn’t actually talk to her, but I saw a guy with a chainsaw going at it. Once the job was done there was enormous pile […]
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Hey Nashville! Do you need soil, mulch, or any other gardening supplies?
This season is our third season gardening at home. We have experimented with different watering techniques, plants, flowers, veggies, soils, etc. Last year we expanded the vegetable garden and did a complete overhaul of our landscaping in the front of the house. To complete these 2 tasks we needed really good soil and mulch to […]
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Forced bulbs update
In November we decided to try forcing bulbs to grow in the middle of winter inside our house (see here). This was an experiment for us – we hadn’t done it before and we didn’t know what to expect. We decided to plant hyacinths and daffodils – not the easiest to grow for this kind […]
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Home-made Pizza!
A few weeks ago I was craving pizza. We normally buy the materials to make our own pizza, including the dough, from Trader Joes. Unfortunately the night I decided to make the pizza, the dough expiration date was about a week past and even though I thought about eating it anyways, I preferred to play […]
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Forcing bulbs
The hundreds of bulbs that we planted outside will take a long time to flower…but we want flowers soon!! Luckily for us, mother nature gives us some opportunities to change the course of things a little bit without making a catastrophic disaster happen. So what are we doing? We are forcing bulbs to grow inside. […]
Los Rodriguez Life 