Tag: Home improvement
-
New digs in Louisville!
It’s safe to say it’s been the craziest roller coaster of a year ever for me and Javier. In January we found out we were pregnant, in February we listed our Nashville house and in March finalized that sale, in April we put an offer on a new house in Louisville and listed our current Louisville house for…
-
Goodbye Sweet East Nashville Home
Gather ’round and let me tell you a tale of house hunting in East Nashville in 2011. Back then, the only houses in our very very tight budget were in East Nashville. Our superb realtor Marcie Nash showed us houses all over town, but saved the best one for last: the house that eventually became our sweet first home in South…
-
January and Minimalism (the documentary)
I’m so happy right now – January is my jam. I am a little bummed that the holidays are over and I hated taking down my Christmas decorations, but I love the subdued quiet and tabula rasa that January offers. The fact that it’s “snowing” (Louisville standards) right now adds to the mood, even though I don’t have any…
-
Shop Buena Buena
This is another topic I’ve been meaning to post about for quite a long time. I mentioned back in June that Javi and I had picked up a bunch of things from Goodwill to make our house more comfortable, including that awesome corner cabinet for our china. I also mentioned that I’d come back to…
-
More Odds & Some Ends
Beyond the wood floors, we’ve been adding other small details here and there to the house that have certainly made it a warmer, more inviting space. My favorite additions are the gorgeous curtains my mom sewed for our living room and kitchen windows. Our local Hancock’s Fabric Store is going out of business, but before…
-
Paint Forever
You can bet your life is pretty chill when the most exciting thing that happens to you over the course of a few days is getting a brand new super vacuum. I don’t know what the normal life span of a vacuum cleaner is, but Javi and I have been using a standard canister vacuum…
-
Shine on, wood floors.
When we moved to Louisville we decided not to move into our room until we took the carpet out or we’d never do it. The previous owners stapled down some fantastically ugly carpet over hardwood floors, which I’m sure was cheaper than refinishing the wood before selling. I prefer scuffed and scratched hardwood over cheap,…
-
That’s so Louisville
“I’m a Louisvillian again.” “We live in Louisville now!” “Louisville is my new, old home.” “Louisville is my hometown.” All of these phrases keep rotating like marquee announcements through my brain when I wake up in our new house in our new city, and I’m wondering when it’ll just become a normal thing that Javier and I…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Planting trees
When we moved into our mansion back in 2011 one of the first things we did was to remove a couple of huge, dying hackberry trees around the house. It was a matter of safety since these trees were rotting inside and leaning towards our home. At the time, we squared the situation with ourselves…
-
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.…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Our gigantic pantry / doggo play room
So with the whole office transformation came a few hitches that we had to solve…like where on earth were we going to put two dressers, a mattress and box spring and a wing back chair and recliner. So we took stock of what we wanted to sell (…which only turned out to be the old…
Los Rodriguez Life 