You call this vacation?

My vacations for the past 9 years have not been what most people would call exciting.  It has been about 10 years since I went away on my vacation and that was the last time I was at the ocean too.  My vacations now usually consist of my boys being with me for a week and we go to the pool, relax and I spend a great deal of time in the kitchen cooking for them. 

This year is not much different except I threw in some home improvement projects as well.  The one we have accomplished so far is redoing the floors and cabinets in our downstairs loo.

First we had to take up the tile floor.



A very time consuming task for such a small loo.




Finally all of the floor is up and we can place the black paper down and begin to lay the flooring.



Being married to a man who can do all this kind of work was the smartest thing I have ever done.  Robby made this seem like it was no effort at all, which only made me wonder what took us so long to do this?  He did a beautiful job of laying the flooring and staining it.

Flooring down and one coat of stain applied.  Looking good!!!

One last look at cabinet with doors.

Second coat applied and toilet put in place.  Now for the cabinet.

Doors removed and ready for transformation.

I was so excited about finally having a white bathroom with hardwood floors.  Robby was amazing at how fast he got this done.  The shelf, my dad made, and we painted it.  I hope to change out the nic-nacks on the shelves from time to time to keep it interesting.

Love my shelf.  Finally some feminine touches in this house filled with boys.

Not sure why the coloring is so bad in this picture.  My trusted camera is acting up.

The cabinet after being sanded and repainted.  Love it!!!

Well, Robby was so impressed with how it all came out, he is going to do our other two bathrooms too.  I think he thought I was crazy when I said I wanted the cabinets white, but he really loves how it all turned out.  And no complaints about me making it look feminine.  Hey, I have lived here for 7 years and it has taken this long for me to do this.  That is amazing for me considering I use to repaint my walls and move the furniture around on almost a monthly basis in houses I have lived in in the past.  I have never lived with someone who had such an opinion on how to do things.  It must be the builder in him, because I am use to being able to just start a project and do it however I want.  Not so much with Robby around.  I guess it also has to do with the fact that he built this house 19 years ago and I am still not feeling like I can just start changing things around, move furniture in and out on a whim and randomly start painting.  Plus, I am not a stay at home mom anymore, so I don't have all day alone to do what I want.  I work during the week and on the weekends, there is no way I can start a project without him noticing.  I have always been in a position where if I wanted something changed or done, I pretty much had to do it myself.  I got very use to that and didn't really mind it.  No one was around to tell me not to do something or that I couldn't.  Robby is not the type to let me just start ripping stuff up and tearing things down.  In his eyes, he is the one to do that kind of stuff, so I need to run it by him first.  Then I have to wait for him to think about it long enough until he is ready to agree.  Only thing is, then he wants to do it himself and I don't get to.  I guess it is all about compromise and I never had to do that before.  Since my ex-husband wasn't really around much to tell me not to do something to a room, I just did it.  And I guess when he came home and saw things were different than from when he left, he saw that it kept me occupied and out of his way, so it was fine.  Redecorating, gardening and painting were my release for all the unhappiness I had inside.  Constantly changing things to try and make them better and fix what was missing in my life I suppose.  Now I just do all of those things because I love to, but I have Robby as an obstacle sometimes and am having to learn about compromise.  It is a good trade off though.  We have a wonderful marriage and if it takes me a little longer to get this whole house done, it's okay.  I don't plan on going anywhere and have my whole life to get it all done.