DB thank you for the constructive comment.

I didn’t come here for opinions on the almond color. Yes, I hate that name as well but it is the best option. I’m looking on advice for how to remedy this situation best and receive what we ordered.

Pictures below of what our “almond” windows will look like.

I've actually seen those almond-like colors more and more here in new construction. I was as surprised as anyone.

Looks like its your choice. Mistakes are made from time to time. Frustrating, for sure.

We had a window snafu and several windows had to be replaced due to size. I hated to do it, but we just delayed the project. It was the architect’s mistake and he paid for the replacements. I wouldn’t have been interested in getting money back to keep the windows, and the architect pretty much insisted that we get them fixed. He was actually the one that pointed out the mistake to us. He is going to reuse the initial windows in one of his next projects so he’ll eventually get his money back. I would never have asked for extra compensation for the delay nor would I have accepted it if offered. We think very highly of our architect and mistakes happen.

It’s really up to you whether you want to wait or not. I prefer white or black windows because that’s more my modern style so the delay wouldn’t be worth it to me. You’ll have to decide how badly you want the almond color.

Do meeting. Don’t belabor issue with person doing walkthrough. Replacing those windows if not done with care could create a whole new set of problems like water intrusion causing loads of issues down the road. I know you had a visual set. What are you painting brick? Perhaps a small adjustment on paint color would be a quick, easy resolution. Look and discuss win/win ways to resolve this. Being nice and working toward a mutually satisfactory solution will be far better than arguing about who’s fault this is. The builder is ultimately responsible and holds the warranty for installation. Post photos of what you were planning and let us help you get creative.

You are hung up on the “why” part which is irrelevant at this point. Fighting the builder will not end well for you.

Make your choice and get on with your life.

Ss sorry this happened. .No painting windows (assuming they are vinyl) as it will just be a maintenance issue down the road and likely forfeit the warranty.. What color windows did you get and what is your brick?

If replacing , Across the board there is going to be major delays and you will be lucky if its only 8 weeks. Supplies are short currently and demand is big. You can't insist on something they literally can't get regardless of whose mistake it was. As far as the credit they are offering, its insulting.

Perhaps a shift in color scheme can make them work. A refinishing/painting of the brick to work with the window color.

Ultimately the responsibility falls on your builder to make this right for you.

Re: Almond windows. They are also almond to the interior and that can be an interior decorating nightmare regardless of how it goes with your brick. You look at your windows a great deal more from inside.

Maybe change the brick to some other color or something else to complement the white windows.

That 'new' almond is quite different from the almond everyone is criticizing. It's more taupe on my display. And it looks good to me. I would not accept white as an alternative.

As someone who recently finished building I would say please don't let this put a damper on

your project. If this is your only issue you will have been blessed. I'm glad we finished ours before the pandemic hit. In our area building is at an all time high but so are the delays.

Our neighbors just had to renew their lease for another year or move to the property in their trailer. After we were in an RV for 1 year I told them with 4 kids forget the trailer idea.

Whitney - I am so sorry that this has happened to you. I actually like your color scheme. ;-)

We are building, so I understand your heart break. We are using a white brick with tans and gray. Bits of red brick sticking through.

White windows. But now I am worried about the fascia board being too white for the brick. The windows lean more toward a gray tinge, while the fascia seems to be a white/white. We will get to see some other choices tomorrow.

Every little thing that has happened with our build, or every little mistake that I have made in judgement has been a big disappointment to me. I am currently bracing myself for when I get to see my new front door for the first time tomorrow. I agonized over that door for weeks and not sure how it is going to look!!! I've already made a mistake on a side door.

Kind of like the door guy said to me. People worry about all these details when building and then one day you are walking through the doors and don't even notice:-)

This is so true!!!

BTW- We have a window snafu. The interiors were pre-painted at the factory. I thought they looked good. But our contractor and the builder supply guy were not happy with a few places in the finish. The supply guy got us a $4500 credit!!! My thoughts were that they will be covered by Charleston shutters, anyway.

@dan1888 I agree, it doesn't look at all like I've seen other almond windows to look like.

I was just questioning what color the house is that the white wouldn't go with.

I like the taupe/almond in the photos, but also think white would look good, but it is always a disappointment when things don't end up the way we want them to, especially when it's caused by no fault of our own.

But reality is, it will likely be a significant wait to get them changed.

If you decide to have him pull the windows...Your builder will either keep the white windows for future use or be allowed to return them with a hefty restocking fee. Either way, you will end up paying for the returned white windows in other ways imo. Who knows how long it will really take to get your new windows!

what brand are the windows? some brands have ”Whites” that you might not mind as much. Andersen is a little gray. Marvin a little more warm. Is there any way you can look at this as serendipity? Something tells me reordering and replacing the windows is not the way to go...especially now with Pandemic delays.

ask for a bigger credit...or a free paint job on your brick.

With the uncertainty of building materials, I’d try to make them work. But I’d also ask for a larger credit. I don’t think the white windows will look bad with your house. Not enough to delay the build.

Keep the current window color and get a $1,000 credit.

Do you mean that the window company is giving you $1000.00 to compensate your getting the rong windows? Then, obviously, it is indeed the mistake of the window company. Don't lay this on your contractor. It has nothing to do with him. (He does have a copy of his order, yes?)

Just pick option #1 or #2 and live with your decision. Very disappointing and I feel for you, but it is what it is.

I ended up going to the house today and running into our general contractor. He told me that the dealer did indeed just submit the order for the wrong color. The windows that are missing are supposedly on back order and I'm not sure when they will arrive. After politely expressing our frustration with the situation he made some calls and the window supplier is telling them they can get the replacements here in 3 weeks. We still have a meeting tomorrow to discuss this and other changes, and we will still be asking for some additional compensation due to their error. Appreciate all of the constructive feedback.

Glad you are getting the windows after all. Delays happen but are frustrating. If it helps think of all the complexity in a new build and how it must be tough to manage that.

i don’t like the stark white windows that are on most new builds around here. Id prefer the almond. We have beige windows and no regrets.

Great news !

You are very lucky.

Yeah, he says 3 weeks, but it could be 8.

Suppliers are just throwing out all kinds of BS “don’t bother me” dates at this point. Be sure your lease can be renewed on a month to month. You’ll be 2-6 months behind on any build during Covid. Or, you’ll accept what is available rather than what you want, in order to meet the time frames you want.

The pathetic truth here, is VIRUS considered, the answer to everything is "when it is done", "when it GETS here."

It is parts, it is supply chains, it is truck drivers and their availability. It is simply the usual, magnified for UN usual times. Nobody want's to hear it. Not even me. But that is what it is. Then add, the oft occurring glitches, no matter the arduous planning and attention to detail. Building mirrors life, and football. Anything can and will happen.

To add to what Jan said, don't forget about weather-related delays - blizzards are a thing this time of year. No matter where you or the windows are, if there's a blizzard in the central part of the country, there will be shipping delays - for the materials, the finished product, the trucks to actually get those things from point A to point B. All that. Might only be a day or two, but it can ripple and make your 3 weeks 4 or 5 weeks real quick.

Given it's a non-standard color, they may have to have the paint made as well. While they offer 75 bajillion colors, they don't stock them in the window factory and have to be special ordered from the paint manufacturer. Who may not have the raw materials in stock (like the actual container the paint will go in - which are in short supply right now because of demands for metals, etc.) for such a small order and there's a delay there too.)

Point being, have a solid contingency plan.

In addition to a solid contingency plan, I recommend alcohol.

I built about 8 years ago now. I went into it a happy carefree idiot who went into it knowing I would spend a bazillion dollars - but thought at least my house would be perfect at the end.

Ha ha.

Nothing in life is perfect. Crap happens. On something as complicated as building a new house from the ground up, you have to go into it expecting problems, snafus, and a certain amount of general chaos. People make mistakes, stuff looks different than you expected, supply problems, stuff on back order...

Throw a world wide pandemic into the mix...and yeah. Good luck.

Stock up on alcohol. :)

Why is it shameful to complain about window color?? They are using that color on tons of new developments here

We did a pandemic reno and addition and ordered 25+ Andersen windows last year with 6-8 week lead time. Then 4 weeks ago I decided that I needed "just one more window"...oops. Window broker said that Andersen will not commit to any real date, they estimated 6 weeks because that is close to how it has been. The window showed up today! Yes , only 1 but 4.5 weeks made me happy! Good luck!!

Delays happen. I was supposed to be in my house in February, I didn't move in until September. And that was before the pandemic delayed all construction and drove the prices through the roof. You have to plan for delays, change orders, etc. I am guessing your new house will cost you more then your current rent/house payments, if you can't afford $300/month how will you afford the new house? Cut your expenses if you need to, Maybe you can get rid of cable/netflix/etc, get a cheaper internet package, get a cheaper phone package, drive less, eat take-out less, turn the heat down/lights off to save on utilities. It's amazing what you can give up for a few months to have your dream home.

As far as the windows, you really have to decide if almond is worth waiting for. If it's a make all- break all item where changing the color to white will be a decision you regret as long as you live in that house, then wait for it. If you can take it or leave it, then go with the white and get the build back on track. There were a few things in our house that went wrong, The architec originally had a vaulted ceiling in the bedroom, we had them take it out of the design, however the lumber company ordered off the older design somehow and our ceiling trusses came with a vaulted ceiling. So we now have a vaulted ceiling in our bedroom. It wasn't a break-all so we left it instead of having them re-make it and wait.

I don't know how your overall window budget compares to the $1000 credit. Is that the difference between the cost of white vs almond? If it is then it sounds like a fair credit, if the cost of almond is more than $1000 over the cost of basic white then ask for more, if you decide to keep the white.

So if you have to stay an extra 8 weeks, you are asking your builder for $600 credit for the extra rent? Maybe you can work something out, but remember he is not getting rich on building houses in these times and he has his own expenses to meet too.

I am guessing your new house will cost you more then your current rent/house payments, if you can't afford $300/month how will you afford the new house? Cut your expenses if you need to,

Yes you are guessing. The OP may be like us. We had sold our house and living in an RV while building. The rent in the RV park plus other expenses was much greater than our monthly payment for our new home.

What is the arrangement? Is this a "builder owns the land/house/development, but you get to pick the finishes and then you buy it at completion" or is this your land and you've hired the builder? Because if it's the former, be careful not to overplay your hand. Most markets are hot, and going to get hotter with the spring upcoming. The builder could tell you to pound sand and just sell it to the next person who just wants a house and doesn't care that the windows are white.

I am guessing your new house will cost you more then your current rent/house payments, if you can't afford $300/month how will you afford the new house? Cut your expenses if you need to

Rentals in my area are 2x-2.5x what my mortgage payment is a month. So, yeah, renting would cut into my budget a bit.

Depending on the set up let’s not forget some people carry the mortgage of the house they are building plus rent during the build. We did for 16 months and it was a lot. Letting go of the 4K a month rental was a dream.

@Josie23: Zone 5: WI never once did I say that we cannot afford an accelerated rent payment and it is rude to assume we cannot afford to build a house. The delay, which circles back to being the fault of the builder, has put us in a hard situation - both logistically in our current living situation and with a lot of additional added cost far beyond $600. I'm pretty sure if you ordered a window package that is $8,000-$10,000 you wouldn't just say "oh well, mistakes happen. I'll be happy not getting what I ordered and I'm fine with paying several extra thousand dollars to have this issue fixed because that's just how it is. Let me cut my Netflix and it's all good."

It's not about when mistakes are made, rather how they are resolved and we are looking for happy resolution for everyone involved. My earlier comments provided an update which you failed to read.

The $1000 is a low ball offer especially considering they are already installed.

They said the mistake was on the window company, so it should not cost the builder anything. How would a stranger know how much the builder is making, and why is it relevant?

So, what's the real story?

"He told me that the dealer did indeed just submit the order for the wrong color."

"The delay, which circles back to being the fault of the builder"

'

The general contractor is responsible to the owner for the window supplier's mistake. The builder may or may not be reimbursed by the window dealer; it doesn't matter.

I've been through this kind of window color ordering error before and I made some design and color changes and the owners liked it better.

We could help you with that but we don't know what the house looks like and I assume none of the photos is of the house.

I recently designed a total renovation and showed the owner's Marvin's "cashmere" and stone white. They chose white. In the end I think it was the right choice because the existing house was a pale beige stucco.

But "almond" is not a color that is easily defined:

We have Marvin windows in the stone white....a really lovely color that looks nice with BM White Dove Inside my house. And looks fine with our Azek exterior trim.

that’s why I was curious about her window brand to determine the “white”. All whites are not the same. I really don’t love Andersen white which is the gray.

I’m not sure of the window brand but we what we received is a stark white. Our house will be painted brick SW agreeable gray with gauntlet gray trim. Replacement windows have already been ordered in the correct color!

I wasn’t going to comment on the colour of windows as it wasn’t relevant. But you are ordering almond (brown/light tan type colour I’m guessing), to go with a grey home? Have you seen the three colours together to confirm they will look good? I know some greys are flexible.

Yes, we have seen this combination in person and it is the best option. Even the designer agreed.

We painted our outside of the house gauntlet Grey! Love it

Kathy do you have almond windows?

My old kitchen was Agreeable Gray, such a soft, nice warm gray. Please post f/u pics when your home is complete, especially window close ups :)

Lucky - I assume you mean follow up pics and not what my brain first thought. Although, given the hate for the almond windows, perhaps it’s both lolol

The purpose of this post isn’t whether or not you agree with my color selection. I have worked with two interior designers on this choice and it is the best choice for our home. I appreciate those who have provided helpful feedback.

Wisco, oh my gosh, yes follow up...I always abbreviate it that way...

Good lucky Whitney. Didn’t mean to add fuel to the file on the window colours. I do hope it all comes together

Yeah, I was just trying to add levity, not pile on about the color thing. Best of luck with getting them on time - I’m sure they’ll look great!

No. But we bought a new build and they had Milguard tan windows. This older home has black which we are replacing with white Milguard. Wish I could afford black, but we need so many....

Since it should be obvious that nail-fin windows cannot be replaced after brick cladding has been installed over the fins, the only issue here is whether to accept the white windows or wait for the almond windows, therefore the subject of this thread has always been whether almond is worth the wait so it has always been about color preference.

If you had shown us the design and actual colors we could have had a reasonable discussion but you didn't do that preferring to discuss who was at fault and the hardships this has caused you.

In the end it appears you are dong beige on beige but no one will ever know for sure.

Thank all of the members who responded and let it go.

Whitney I would make sure to have a back up plan. The best laid solutions sometimes still take longer than the allotted time. Make sure your rental can be lengthened, just in case, think about how you would handle it if the project ran over a month to three months. Better to be prepared