Tag: Home improvement
-
Clutter-free kitchen counters!
One of our goals with the new kitchen was to keep our countertops free of JUNK and general kitchen clutter. Our kitchen is small and mighty, and our counterspace is extremely limited. We were constantly moving things around to free up a clear space for food prep, and the clutter is just mentally stressful. So…
-
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 Our cabinets were greasy from years of cooking without a vented stove and had painfully outdated hardware, but structurally they were sturdy and actually very nice.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…
-
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’…
-
Goldie’s DIY Nursery Closet Renovation
Well, we are officially one week from Goldie’s due date! As I type this she’s still nice and comfy on the inside, but she could come at any time! After Javier’s family left back in November we got to work with the final nesting stages – sorting through Penelope’s old newborn-6 month clothing to see…
-
Before and After: Three New Doors!
Ok, so we can’t DIY EVERYTHING that our house needs. Just like these projects back in 2017, there are a few things around the house that we needed to contract out to the professionals. This year we had a company come in and insulate / ventilate our house so that we have proper air flow…
-
Wall Paper Mural – Before and After
I’ve had wallpaper on my mind for over a year now thanks to blogs like A Beautiful Mess and Young House Love. I know I want to use some peel-and-stick wallpaper in our dining room, but I needed a trial run in a smaller space before committing a whole room to wallpaper. Last year Young…
-
DIY: Wood Poster Hanger Tutorial [video]
![DIY: Wood Poster Hanger Tutorial [video]](https://losrodriguezlife.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/adk_0428.jpg?w=1024)
We scored two beautiful Christmas posters today for less than $10 at Scout in NULU and decided to make our own wood poster hangers! We made a little tutorial video, and the materials / steps are detailed below. If this tutorial is useful to you, please pin it / share it and help spread the…
-
(Some) Home Improvement 2019
Lest you think Javi has spent even one day this entire year without SOME kind of project in our house, let me bring you up to speed on all of the ways our house has transformed since January! The first big project was building all of those beautiful cabinets that cover our open shelving in…
-
We swapped our carpet for vinyl planks and EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL.
When we moved into our house last year we tore out carpet, painted, redid the stairs, replaced 18 windows, and added a fence and started a garden. Everything ground to a halt when Penny arrived. Besides a new baby, what really stopped us was the fact that all of the rooms we now want to…
-
End of Summer Adventures
Last year I was 36 weeks pregnant with Penny when we went to the KY State Fair…5 weeks away from her birth. We took this photo… El año pasado 36 semanas de embarazo con Penny cuando fuimos a la Feria de Kentucky…a 5 semanas de su nacimiento. Sacamos esta foto… And we decided to re-take…
-
Pile Composting: How and Why
Composting is great for the garden and beneficial for the environment in general as we reduce the amount of trash going to landfills. Composting can be done on different scales; from huge industrial operations to small home-based systems. In this series of posts I want to share the 4 ways I compost. I already discussed…
-
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…
-
Penelope’s Nursery Tour
Penny’s room has been a work-in-progress since we moved into the house, and we are adding to it all the time. There was no rush for us to finish P’s nursery before she was born because we didn’t really use it for anything besides diaper and clothing changes until she was about six months old…
-
We Have a Garden!
Back in Nashville, Javier spent an immense amount of time and effort building up our garden from summer 2011 after we moved in right up until fall 2015 when we moved away. Every year he’d add a raised bed and fence it all in again with chicken wire. He’d come home from work or class…
-
What we didn’t DIY
Back in May when I first started posting about our projects for the new home, I mentioned three tasks that we either couldn’t or didn’t want to DIY. These were three top-of-the-list items that had to be taken care of before September when Penelope arrives, and I’m happy to report that they have been checked…
-
Refinishing the Stairs Part 1
We figured the wood stairs would be in worse shape than any of the bedroom floors because they endure the most traffic, but we weren’t prepared for the amount of tedious work it would take to whip them into shape. I’ll add: the jury is still out on what kind of shape they’ll be in…
-
Back to the Bedroom Refinishing…
Utter contentment is chilling on the couch in between two big cuddly dogs listening to “An Elegant Affair” playlist on Spotify (Javier’s choice) while Javi waters orchids. Javier and I had our Birth Class Part 2 tonight and I got *extra* worked up about the insane amount of newborn first-time-mom stress that I’m about to…
-
Finished Gradient Dresser for Penelope’s Nursery
Back in my previous life as a Sociology graduate student at Vanderbilt I was a big fan of a blog called Young House Love. My friend Ashley and I were completely awed by all of the projects this young couple completed, and their blogging style was pure fun to read. When I finished my coursework and delved into…
-
Polishing Brass Hardware
Over the last week I’ve been working on refinishing an old wood dresser that has been in my family for a little over 30 years. My mom first got it from a friend when my dad was studying at Princeton, and my brother grew up with this dresser in his room. When I went to college,…
-
Step One: Refinishing Bedrooms
There are three items on our must-do list this summer that have to be contracted out, and one major project we want to complete on our own before Penelope arrives in the fall. The items we can’t complete on our own are: Remove a dying tree (that actually belongs to our neighbors) that is hanging…
Los Rodriguez Life 