We made our own wine barrel entry table and coat rack

This is our latest project. We ordered a used wine barrel and wine barrel stave (the slats of the barrel) from our favorite winery, Alexandria Nicole Cellars. 

When it arrived it was exactly how we hoped it would be. It had character and the wood was even stained red by where the cork went. It smelled really good too! 

It looked a little unfinished to be a focal point in our house so we thought we would try staining it. We bought a nice oak stain at Lowe's and painted it onto the barrel. I was nervous because I didn't want it to loose any character, but in the end we really liked how it turned out. A lot of the spots and blemished still stand out and the red around the stopper hole stayed too! 

Here is the finished project! Our wedding picture at Silver Lake Winery hangs above it.

And here is what we did with the barrel stave.
We bought coat hooks and attached it to the stave and then hung it on the wall. I think it makes our entry way look more inviting and it will be nice for our guests to have a cool place to hang their coats!

Selling real estate takes some good agent photos

Real Estate agents need a great profile picture to use on their marketing materials that helps potential clients see that they are nice and friendly to work with. It can be hard to find the right photographer to help you get the look you are going for. My mom and her real estate partner Kristine wanted some photos that conveyed their team, and they also wanted some with a red background (since the name of their company is Red Door Team), and also some that would look good in black and white. Here are some of the shots we got. 

This is Kristine. Don't you just want to buy a house from her! I do. (lol)

And this is my mom. She looks so beautiful to me! I would buy a house from her too. 

Here are the shots with the red background I was talking about.

We did a couple of outdoor shots too. 

We had fun during the shoot and got some funny out takes too. 

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Cheers!

Here is a link to their website if you are in the market to buy or sell a house: http://www.reddoorteam.com
office@reddoorteam.com

Cruisin' in the Caribbean

Here are some of my favorite travel photos from our cruise we took to the Bahamas and the Eastern Caribbean last month. It was our first cruise and we loved cruising! We never knew it would be so fun! All of the different ports we went to were amazing and so beautiful. The color of the water was my favorite part.

Our favorite city.... San Diego!

We were lucky enough to get to go to San Diego twice last year and stay with my Brother-in-Law who was stationed there with the Navy. San Diego was so fun. We loved the city and the proximity to the beach. We went to Hotel Coronado on both trips and walked along Coronado beach. Here are some photos from the trips. 

Hotel Coronado

  

Downtown San Diego

This is Hotel Coronado. They had an ice skating rink on the beach!!

We went to a San Diego Chargers game.

Nobu is a really fancy Asian restaurant in San Diego. I ordered sake in the tradional Masu box. It was supposed to enhance the flavor. I think it did a little, but not that noticeable.