House Update: We Have Windows!

Five months into construction, the windows were installed.

I had to double check that last sentence after typing it. Has it really been only five months? We're so eager to get into our new home, it feels like Panorama Homes has been building it forever, with no end in sight. We broke ground at the end of June and the windows were installed right before Thanksgiving.

That still doesn't seem right. Also, I am way behind on my blogging.

Sexy Nerd and I went around and around on windows, waging a heated battle between Pella and Amsco. What's that? You've never heard of Amsco windows? Supposedly, if my husband and our builder and our foreman and dozens of Google reviews are to be believed, Amsco is far superior to Pella in every way.

Still, it would have been nice to install just two Pella windows, purely for the sake of being able to say "Our house has Pella windows," without it being a complete lie. According to the Pella salesman though, their windows don't actually say Pella anywhere...so what's the point?

Here are our living room windows, as seen from a windowless room.

My dad doesn't understand why we bothered with the divided light windows at the top. I think they're cute! They add character and they were one of the non-negotiable items on my design wish list.

Which, I suppose, makes it a design demand list.

Can you tell I'm partial to divided light windows?

I do have an Amsco window complaint, although I'm told this is the same for all windows. Fine, I have a complaint about all windows. See those adorable little squares on the right, complete with charming, perfectly proportionate mullions? See that enormous window on the left, the one that appears to be tied to the wall with a cheap piece of string? No matter what size window you purchase, they install the exact same ten-cent mullion between the glass.

BIGGER WINDOWS = BIGGER MULLIONS

I can't be the only person who feels this way. Get it together, window companies.

Ack! When I'm in the dining nook, I'll just stare at the ceiling. This was going to be one of my favorite windows and it looks so awful, especially with the reminder of how it should be just outside, taunting me with its proportionate mullion goodness. 

"Nyah, nyah," it says.

For months I tried to add upper windows to our foyer, but everyone told me not to bother, insisting 8' tall entry doors would be more than enough. I finally got them and I love them. Phooey to you folks who did not share my vision.

Phooey to you, Sexy Nerd.

I also had to battle you-know-who to get these three windows above my kitchen sink. Now, he loves them. LISTEN TO YOUR CLEVER WIFE, SEXY NERD! 

That said...

Here is a view through an interior window in the foyer. Yes, those are especially tall ceilings for a bathroom. The square at the top of the especially tall wall? It was a last minute idea and Sexy Nerd might hang a bell inside. Of course, he will need to somehow build a custom-sized bell for this to work.

He says he'll run a rope down the wall so that people can ding the bell when they're done using the toilet.

He's joking...I think.

Whenever a contractor steps unsuspectingly into this bathroom, they look up.

And.They.Laugh. 

It might turn out to be the most amazing bathroom in the history of bathrooms, starting a long-lasting trend of mega-ceilinged, super-bathrooms. Anything is possible.

Perhaps Sexy Nerd should have reined in my insanity creativity on this one. He picked his battles.

He may have picked wrong.

From inside the elegant funhouse bathroom, I thought you'd be able to see the sky through the kitchen windows. You almost see a sliver, but the curved ceiling of the hallway takes up the entire view.

Which is sort of neat too.

Behold, another window with insufficiently scaled mullions.

We debated and ultimately opted for tempered privacy glass here, which still seems ugly to me. It's a shower window. If I could go back, I would do away with the lower window altogether and just go with the upper squares, which are high enough that privacy isn't a concern. The trouble with designing a home from scratch (well, one of many troubles) is that windows look great on paper. It's just $200 here and another $300 there, which feels like it's in the noise when your budget is hundreds of thousands of dollars.

When you look at the resulting ugly window every day, knowing well that it cost more than a 5-night cruise, your soul dies a little and you curse your younger, idiot self. 

Complaining aside, most of the windows turned out exactly as we'd hoped and we can't wait to move in.

These windows, which are in the kitchen, turned out great. I've been toying with the idea of having identical mirrors cut to hang on the opposite, windowless wall. Do they make mirrors that large?

If they do, will the price knock me over?

Other than mirrors, I have no idea what to place in the wall triangle. Decorating experts recommend not drawing attention to it by simply leaving it blank.

Could it really be that simple?

Visualize this with the word "Eight" spelled out in fancy cursive letters above the entryway. 

I wasn't going to type that, thinking it would give away our address, but it's not like I would have a house with fancy cursive letters and not share a photo of it online. Heck, I'm so excited about the fancy cursive letters that I'm telling you about them before I've even figured out how to make them happen! They will be large and they will be cursive and they will be the epitome of fancy.

I love this house.