It is finished...

Yes, those immortal word Jesus spoke while hanging on the cross. Well they were finally uttered from my mouth last weekend as we finally finished the bedroom.
Actually calling it a bedroom is not doing it justice, we now call it the master suite.
It all started ten years ago when we bought this old two story house. It wasn't the layout, the paint color or the landscaping that you see on these home shows today that made me want to "say yes to the Address", we bought it because it was cheap, and could sleep six.
It had its share of warts and bumps though. The weekend after we moved in we found that the main sewer line was somewhat collapsed when we our washing machine started letting water out on the floor instead of down the drain. Digging about sixty feet of sewer line and holding the section that was collapsed in your hands while one of your kids flushed the toilet is a memory I will never forget.
So we got that fixed, and then we found another problem that winter. All the water lines in the house were so corroded that at the first sign of a cold snap they would freeze up. There is nothing fun about six people getting up at the same time to get ready for the day and find that there is no water in the house. That has a tendency to ruin your whole day, not to mention that you look like a homeless person as you can't shower, shave or even brush your teeth. So we went to work on that and replaced all the old copper and iron pipe lines with this new plex line that will not freeze, or burst. Such a breakthrough in technology!
And then we decided to take on the bathroom. Our house was designed with an indoor running track. I am not sure if that was the intended design, but you could make the circuit from the living room, through the kitchen and into the bathroom, exiting to one bedroom and then end up where you started in the living room again. It was really convenient for those cold mornings when you did not want to go outside to run, but not so convenient on those using the bathroom as you ran through. Since the bathroom was almost as big as the bedrooms we decided that one large bathroom could be divided up into two regular size bathrooms so off to work we went again. We finished the main bathroom in a few months working around the plumbing but the master bathroom was a different story. It took all of almost four years to finally complete the master bath. Pretty much there were labor disputes from the start, I did not want to do it and no one could make me. But we eventually got there and finished the master bath just as our first child headed off to college. Bad timing on my part as it would have been better to have those high school years of sharing one bathroom not exist but life goes on.
So the next project was, the master bedroom. First off our bedroom was really two rooms, one we kept the bed in which had a really small closet, the other room we kept all the other junk in. It slowly became a man cave, as in it evolved over time. First an overstuffed chair ended up in there to hang clothes on, and then a actual chest of drawers to put clothes in that were stacked on the chair. And then someone brought an old color TV which went on top of the chest of drawers. A bookshelf, filing cabinet and eventually musical instruments and the man clothes filled the room. My wife started calling it my "sanctuary" as man cave was too rudimentary. Well we decided to remove the wall and open up the bedroom, expand the closet and really make it into something we could enjoy. So over five months we redid the closet for his and her sides in a walk in closet where we can throw all our clothes anywhere we want and then shut the door and no one knows. We redid all the wall finishes eliminating the old wood paneling and lathe and plaster and installed new Sheetrock and insulation in the walls so the neighbors could not hear us snoring at night. We put a new window in to replace the one that allowed the night air (both hot and cold) to come into our bedroom, new painted walls, new trim even a new beamed accent ceiling and lighting enhanced our master bedroom look. Throw in a new bed, new comforter, a fancy red chair, reading lamp and bedside tables along with the new plush carpet and we finally had our master suite which was sweet.
So last Saturday when we finally got everything moved back into the room after the carpet installation we kicked off our shoes, sat in our red chair and relaxed and said, "it is finished"...