Update on the progress of the new house

Progress on the new house is going to slow down for a bit. The second floor excluding the bonus room is framed. The trusses will be delivered sometime toward the end of the month. I'm told that the bonus room will be framed at that time, too.

I requested a pretty simple change to the way the master bath was framed after realizing that rearranging things a bit would allow us to use the floorspace quite a bit more efficiently and to add in a counter/desk for doing makeup.

I ordered windows and patio doors on Friday. After a great deal of deliberation, I settled on vinyl windows from Amsco. I thought long and hard about buying fiberglass composite windows from Pella, but the performance rating wasn't that much better, Elizabeth didn't like the available colors as well, she didn't like how the windows worked as quite well, and they were nearly twice as expensive. However we did splurge for wood framed, aluminum clad patio doors instead of vinyl. I've heard that vinyl patio tend to warp eventually and not be as easy to open. In general, I'm extremely impressed by how energy efficient windows have become over the last few years. Because of government regulation and incentives, window makers have really stepped up the game. The even better news is that substantially better windows are coming soon because requirements just keep getting more stringent.

On Wednesday I ordered appliances. My employer is a supplier to Whirlpool, so we have access to a really good discount program that saved almost $1000 over buying locally with a contractor discount. Even though we don't need the appliances for a couple months, there were discount codes that were expiring, so we'll have to stash the huge boxes in our garage for a while.