Upon the occasion of my divorce, I developed a deep, nagging need for a luxurious bedroom. No. I didn’t have a lover to entertain. I wanted such for me. When living at home as a young’un, my bedroom had been my sanctuary. It had been decorated with Sears French Provincial and a 70s-worthy floral wallpaper quieted down with jungle green paint on the three other walls. Pink shag carpeting.

It was in-your-face early 70s pre-teen.

I loved it.

I clocked some hours in that room. I dreamed there. Wrote bad poetry. Listened to good music. Traveled the world in books. Sanctuary.

When I left my family home for my first apartment, it was furnished. Just dreadful. But for $90 a month what can you expect. The freedom was heady, and I was never there. My first “real apartment” was a partially furnished two-bedroom duplex and I luxuriated in having a real kitchen of my own. Yes, at the tender age of 20-something I loved to cook, and I loved kitchen toys and dishes.

Eventually, I moved in with the man who would become my husband to a fully furnished house. I had little in the way of furniture, but I packed his kitchen and dining room. Piece by piece we refurnished the house from bachelor digs to earnest couple in love with antiques.

Then we moved here and undertook the barn. Put all the furniture and kitchen stuff in storage and set to on the barn conversion. We moved in far before it was habitable. But it was easier to work on that way. Turn on the television and sand drywall after dinner. That sort of thing.

The barn conversion was one step-forward-five-steps-back and after ten long, long years, we’d had enough. The idea had been to be debt free. We threw in the towel and got a construction loan, hired a contractor, and ran out of money before it was quite done. The next 6 years found us finishing what we could, ignoring what we couldn’t and divorcing.

I got custody of the barn and a master bedroom that was an eyesore.

I had plans to finish the barn without the never-ending argument with a husband about how to do it cheaper. When I refinanced to pay off the ex, I took out some equity money. I also raided one of my retirement accounts.

My plan? A bedroom Martha Stewart would ooooh over.

It’s a long story, but I could not find the furniture I wanted, and I’m very fussy about furniture, at a price I was both willing to and able to pay. Fine furniture is expensive. I found the suite of my dreams in a magazine, tracked down a store that sold that brand online and had it priced. $26,000.

Um no.

So, I went looking again. But my heart was broken. What I’d found was perfect in every way and I had some odd requirements of size and pieces. But $26,000 is just crazy talk.

So. I’m driving home from work, and I drive by The North Carolina Furniture Outlet Store. I’d been in there looking and he had some brilliant furniture but nothing that would work. However, he’d told me over and again that if I found something elsewhere to bring it to him and he’d see what he could get it for.

Not hopeful, I presented him the furniture of my dreams. He pulled a big dusty showroom catalog off a shelf, flipped through it, turned it around so I could see, and said, “Is this it?”

I shrieked, “Yes!” So, he set to ciphering. Got out the calculator. And the little wheel of white paper spun like dervish. When he was done, he wrote a number on a legal pad, tucked the pencil behind his ear and said, “That includes, tax, delivery and set up. Take about 12 weeks.”

I took a breath. Looked at the numbers and gaped.

“Are you sure this is right?” I said. He looked at his page of calculations again and declared them solid.

$5600 for a king poster bed, an oversized dresser, nightstand, leather bench, vanity with matching leather bench, and a lingerie chest.

I closed my eyes. Clicked my heels together three times and whispered, “Let’s do it.”

$5600 was a good 2K more than I had budgeted. But…but…but I wasn’t finding anything other than particle board in my price range. I am a furniture snob.

The frenzy began. I had 12 weeks to find bed linens, draperies, a mattress, paint the master and the dressing room with it’s 20-foot ceilings and clean the carpet. I also had to hire a contractor to move a doorway so things would fit where I wanted them. I worked like a madwoman. The bed linens are another story, and they too were far more than I wanted to spend but they were just too perfect. And then there were the lamps and chaise. The whole thing was out of control, but I was going to have the bedroom of my dreams.

And I have for about seventeen years now. The comforter needs to be replaced. I’ve found another set in a icy blue that will be astonishing against the dark wood, and is highly impractical, luxurious, and I love it with an abiding passion. I believe these linens may be my 65^th birthday present. If that’s the case, I need new draperies, new paint, new carpet, new lamps .and I will have to have the chaise reupholstered.

I can’t afford this.

There will be no clicking-of-my-heels-three-times-impulse-buy. Nope. Nor gonna do it. I have spoken.