Master Bedroom

With all the happenings of the late summer I came to realize that I never really did a "final" on the master bedroom project. We moved in during August, but the loss of our niece made that event seem quite small in comparison.

The first picture shows the two big windows, fireplace and Sony LCD 46" on the NE main wall. The addition is 24' x 18' and hangs out over our old deck making it a covered deck.

The 2nd picture is standing in the corner of the room looking back to where I shot the first one from. It shows the refrigerator, wine rack, granite counter, bed, and entrance to the walk-in closet. If you look at the top, you can see where the vaulted ceiling begins, that was the wall of our old bedroom for 13 years.

BTW, we have had the beds for a few years now, they are "hospital beds" with latex mattresses -- the head and the feet can be adjusted up and down. I have had some back problems and a bicycle accident in 2003 that resulted in broken ribs, a broken collar bone and a broken shoulder blade. I slept in a chair for a couple months and realized how nice it would be to have an adjustable bed. When our mattress cleared 10 years old, we went this way and have been very happy. I have sinus and acid reflux issues, so I always sleep with my head elevated -- it is pretty much a waste for my wife unless she is reading, but she MIGHT get older at some point as well.

The 3rd picture is looking across the room from the corner next to the bed and shows the air tub and the two chairs that are used for watching the TV. The TV is on a swing arm so it can be aimed at the chairs or at the bed. The two big windows look out on our back yard that is down a 20' hill and about the size of two football fields end to end. We have woods behind the yard and no neighbors that direction, so we likely will not be doing shades on those windows. In the summer we look right out into the middle of two large cottonwood trees that are about 30 yards down the hill, now the leaves are off and we can see the bare trees and hopefully soon the white snow in the back yard.

I grew up in a small farmhouse in northern WI, spent a few years in an even smaller farmhouse when I started work and in between lived in a home with a "master bedroom" that was something like 10x14' with no walk-in and no bath, and the previous 13 years lived in the old room that was like 12x16' but had a VERY small walk-in and very small bathroom.

Do we "need" this bedroom? Certainly not -- I've worked at a large corporation for 30 years and my wife has worked there for 25. We have seen a lot of our friends laid off, and fully realize that without timely breaks and lucky decisions, we could have been laid off as well. We "stole our home" in the mid-90's when local housing values were down. No doubt we would have trouble getting all the money we have in it today given all our renovation out if we had to sell today, but we don't, and it is pretty unlikely that we will be forced to sell. We "live in the country" about 2 city blocks from a major Wal-Mart shopping center, yet when you sit out at our firepit in the evening, you would be hard pressed to know how close you are to the city. We drive about 1 mile to work-when we do drive, often we can work from home.

I'm 52 -- my wife is very young and not aging, but she may age someday. After having back problems, a bike accident and a broken elbow in the past 10 years, I realize that as one gets older it is possible to have to spend more time in a "bedroom setting" than one might like to contemplate. Even when healthy, it is likely that something like "8 hours" may be spent there. So, on the "investment front", we decided that it was "worth it" for us. One of the great things about the US in the last 30 years has been that it is possible to work hard and make those kinds of decisions for yourself. Will that be the case going forward? Who knows, I'm thankful to be able to watch the world go by from our little "daily retreat".

W0uld I rather be back to living in my little farmhouse and have our niece back? Absolutely, in a heartbeat -- I could think of a whole long list of things that I would "rather have", but there are a set of things we can control somewhat and a really really big set of things that we can't control at all. I could also spend all my time whining about how much the market has gone down, how much CEOs make, how bad BO is likely to be for the country and wishing that this or that had happened in a different way over the previous 52 years -- but most of the time, I don't. I have the "gift" of HAVING to look at 100's of angles of almost everything that goes by my nose, but I've learned to let a lot of just "flow around me".

Sometimes that makes me slower than molasses in January-- but I've learned to adapt. I force myself to "limit the stream" or I certainly could not get out of my own way. Thankfully, my wife is an "action person". I would NEVER have made the decision to build the bedroom without her. It is very easy to get used to something that nice, but I strongly believe that folks that have never had such a thing tend to give it a lot more significance than it warrants. There is a long list of things that I've "pressed my nose up against the glass" wanting during my life, and a more limited, but still significant list of things that have been "achieved" (with plenty of luck and help from others).

Health, love, peace of mind, faith, values, family, friends, a great football team (hard to beat Green Bay), good pets (Tiger is typing this part) ... the list goes on and on. ALL are more important than "a really nice place to live". I'm VERY happy and thankful to have the nice bedroom, and hope that we can enjoy it for a long time to come. It is our little "cabin" that we get to utilize all the time, and a wonderful retreat from the stresses of our world. If you come and visit, you are welcome to spend a couple nights there -- but be warned, it was too many nights spent in nice places like Bluefin Bay on the N shore and nice hotels in the cities that caused us to have too many ideas!