We've earned this one...

One of the things that Steph and I have always dreamed of having is a beautiful bedroom. After all, our bedroom is the room where our relationship flourishes. We spend more time together in this room than in any room in the house. It is where Steph has her office and does her web design, and unlike many families, we don't have a television in the living room, (we don't have a separate family room), we each have a television in our own rooms. It is also the room where we spend most of our time talking together and dreaming together.

The last eight years have been difficult ones for us as a couple--right after we moved back to Stillwater, Steph's mother had a stroke and we moved her, along with Steph's son, Joel in with us. After that, I got emergency custody of all three of my children, and soon after that, we moved into the house where we live now. Not four months after we moved in here, Steph's mother died unexpectedly, and then about a year-and-a-half later, Steph's youngest son, Micah, came to live with us. Steph and I have spent the last several years as a couple taking care of everyone else and seeing to it that their needs were met first, and rightfully so. However, our needs seemed to get neglected, perhaps too often. Finally, this year, we had a financial "break-through" and things have started looking brighter, so when my income tax refunds and stimulus check came through, we decided to spend it on us. We've been working all week on this project, and here it is!

The two photos are of our bedroom--before and after. (In the before picture you'll see a picture insert on the top left of what we wanted to do with the wall behind our, bed, but we changed our minds and didn't paint the stripes, after we got it all together.)