Progress: Upstairs, and Window Drama Yet Again

Ironically, after looking at the great room stairs picture I uploaded in the previous post, it just seemed like the window (or lack thereof) was wrong.  If I compare this mock-up that our architect did for us long ago:

to the picture of the great room stairs now:

...  it's way off.  I'm all for privacy from the street in the great room, but this is a little much!  Thankfully, yesterday my builder had noticed that the ICF guys had not filled this area all the way to the top with concrete during the first pour, in anticipation of placing a window.  Sigh of relief!  We are now working on getting that edited, needless to say.

In other more progressive news, the upstairs has begun.   Once again, I feel the house is too big which would not have been my preference: 

That's the hole to the foyer below, which has a double ceiling.  Another area of contention was that the contractors were freaking out that some of the windows in the back are not the same head height.  My architect and I realized this wasn't the norm, but I've always said "business in the front, party in the back".  It was funny - as much trouble we were having with the language barrier, as soon as I said that, the contractors understood and started laughing.  Carry on!