Our new sunroom/trips we could have taken

Our new sunroom was finished about a week ago. It's beautiful. It is built like a real room, no curved glass and metal windows, no choking heat, no leaks in heavy rainstorms. It was a nice room while it lasted but it just wasn't pleasant anymore. Our neighbor Jordan was our contractor and did a superb job. He stressed about wrong windows and getting behind on his promised time of one month, but it was fine. We even saved some money because of the window problem.

The ceiling is higher than the rest of the house and has three skylights, one that opens. The big picture window frames our aspens outside. There are real doors with blinds on the inside of the glass, a woman's invention, I'm sure. Since we had to pick paint for the new room we went ahead and had the living room and hallways painted too - a beautiful, soft yellow that really livens up the whole house. And new carpet throughout most of the top floor! Of all the man-made items in the world, new carpet that looks nice and feels soft on your toes is a joy to behold. Yes, I love the carpet.

Besides the new room and new carpet we had a new roof put on. We loved our old cedar shakes but they were causing leaks and the roof had outlived its life. So we have a nice new asphalt roof as well. And new insulation in the attic. We've never done this much to a house before. Our Austin house only got a new roof once, and the deck and a used hot tub, but this house is the one we'll be in for a long time so it needed the TLC. I kept thinking about all the trips we could take with the amount of money we were spending on the new construction and decided it's worth it to have this new room over several trips. It's wonderful to sit in and when we do go on a trip, it will be wonderful to come home to.