Tag: diy
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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.…
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THE FINISHED LANDSCAPE!
I still can’t believe we never posted about our finished landscape. After all that work and all those updates along the way – we never showed off the finished product! I think it was such an effort to do the landscaping that the thought of describing the final push to finish was too much to…
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Rocking the display
On my day off work, I had planned on working on the yard. I wanted to clean the paths between garden beds, weed the flower beds, mow the overgrown weeds, etc…but it was raining, so any fun activity had to be an indoor activity. En mi dia libre, tenia planeado trabajar en el patio. Quería limpiar el…
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We are growing fruit too!!
Most times we are outside, we look at our fence and think….there must be something we can do about this fence. We thought about painting it, but that would take A LOT of paint and money (and effort…). We also thought about growing a vine that could cover the fence over time, and we really…
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Our newest backyard addition
Wooooooo we have a picnic table! Since we moved in 2 years ago I’ve been toting a folding card table between the front porch (where it belongs) and the backyard (where I occasionally like to work) and now I can be as lazy as I damn well please because we bought a wood picnic table!…
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DIY Cold frames
The weather in Tennessee has been a little weird. We have had several very warm days during the winter, and then a drop to freezing temperatures for a couple of days. The plants are confused. Bulbs are popping out happily thinking spring is here, but then a couple of below freezing nights hurt their leaves.…
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Soil is the key to happy plants!
The new beds are up and ready and the old beds are “refreshed” and ready too! Setting up everything required some work but we believe it will pay off in the long run with TONS of veggies. The 2 old beds had left over dirt from last year and the new ones were completely empty…
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Fencing the garden
I don’t know about you but somewhere along the way we failed to teach our dogs to garden. I am sure they would be great at digging holes for planting, but I doubt they would dig exactly where I need them to. So in order to avoid any problems with the raised beds in the…
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Prepping the new garden beds
Our vegetable garden is expanding this year. Last year I built 3 beds but only wound up using 2. This year we are using all 3 from last year and adding 1 ½ more. The big beds are 4 x 8 feet and the half is 4 x 4, and all of them are about…
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Cleaning the garden beds
Once we had the edging installed we knew exactly what the garden’s boundaries were and proceeded to the next step: cleaning out the weeds and bermuda grass. These beds needed a DEEP cleaning – there were loads of unwanted plants growing there and of course with the plants came roots. Also, because we neglected the…
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Installing edging
We have a ton of hard work to accomplish in our landscape plan to prepare for the arrival of the plants. We ordered most of our plants online and they will ship when our zone (TN) is ready for planting. Since we moved into the house, weeds and Bermuda grass have taken over the old…
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The best yard in the street
When we moved into our house, we quickly learned from the neighbors that the previous owner had the most beautiful yard in the street (key word HAD). We had never taken care of a yard before, so the idea of keeping up with it was a little daunting. We had other priorities in mind: fence,…
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Los Rodriguez Mansion: Ready for Christmas!
So now that we’ve seen the Nutcracker and watched a few Christmas movies, Javi and I are feeling properly Christmasy and into the season. We decorated the house the week after Thanksgiving this year, but I haven’t had a chance to thoroughly clean the house yet to take photos. Most of our decorations are much…
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Sprucing up the porch
Our porch is, in my opinion, one of the best parts of our house and Javi and I spend as much time as we can out there. It’s also the home to the Porch Practice Sessions for Hickory Slims, so I spend quite a bit of time on that little slab of concrete in front…
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Friday Party Prep
So this month my brother (Ian) and dad turn 30 and 60, and Ian decided that we had to celebrate this momentous occasion with a first-rate McClure party. My parents and brother know a thing or two about throwing parties: my parents threw a huge Derby party every year for a decade back when we…
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DIY Big Face Poster
**CLICK HERE TO READ THE UPDATED DIY POST FROM 2018** We are sure that at this point you guys have seen plenty of giant faces jumping around the stands in football games, basketball games and just about every sporting event. We think they are pretty funny watching from the TV – but there is no…
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3 Baby steps towards a greener life
Clothesline: We wrote a post a few weeks ago about this little addition to our home. To summarize, we barely use the dryer (we will most likely use it in the winter), we use less electricity, we are not adding drying sheets to the garbage, and we are enjoying spending a little more time outside.…
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Sun & Heat, you are hired!
After starting the garden and installing the hammocks in the backyard, we are spending much more time with Chupete and Choripan in the backyard. We would love to be able to spend even more time in this peaceful space, but Tennessee has decided to heat things up (quite a bit) and staying outside, even under…
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We have hammocks!
As a birthday present from my family I got some money to use for anything I wanted. The only condition was that I had to use it for something fun, not for paying bills or to put into savings (which they know I tend to do). My first thought was to maybe use it towards…
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DIY Photography Backdrop
I can’t remember the exact time that the idea of a photo booth caught Leslie’s attention – but she loves photo booths now! It might have been at our friend Robyn’s wedding – I think that was the first wedding photobooth we experienced. We have been to several events with different kinds of photo booths…
Los Rodriguez Life 