The greenspeed can minimize the need for the auxiliary heat in situations where a normal heatpump can't keep up by itself. So being the greenspeed is more expensive, it is really only helpful in an all electric situation where you can get some significant extreme cold weather where you would be normally be running alot of auxiliary electric to supplement a regular heatpump. If it rarely gets below 30 degrees I think the greenspeed is overkill. Greenspeed is probably overkill if if rarely gets below 20 degrees. If you have all electric and your in Minnesota or Canada then the Greenspeed is for you. If you have gas, you should use it. I personally like dual fuel setups because you have more options to heat with. That means a gas furnace coupled with a heatpump. If gas were to get expensive some day you could heat with the heatpump. Even with cheap gas the new efficient heatpumps of today are pretty competitive to gas in mild cold weather (above 35 or so). Ofcourse this depends on how expensive your electricity is. If you go with dual-fuel I would recommend the highest-efficiency single stage unit. These offer a pretty good bang-for-your-buck.If your in michigan I wouldn't get an 80% furnace. I would get 95% efficiency. Other reason I like heatpumps is because they shouldn't cost alot more over the regular A/C unit. Basically a heatpump is an A/C unit with some extra parts. Some dealers like to charge a big upgrade cost for this. Others charge only the extra cost of the upgraded unit.

@bikewalkbarb, we used a regular 24x30 cabinet and pulled it forward 6” by building the hip wall. I put in what most people would call a prep sink. It’s this one: Check out this NORRSJÖN from IKEA. Here’s a little more information: https://ingka.page.link/1BkPy6CpRXDnUGK17 I pulled the sink as far forward as the original sink was, so I now have a large space in the back where I have my knife block (since the cabinet above the sink allows me to pull the knives out without sliding the block forward), a dish storing my scrubbing pads, and in the back right corner is an ikea dish strainer. We didn’t have enough space on the right either and so I went with the smaller deep sink (still fits the Insta pot fine). So on the right I have the dish strainer pushed all the way to the corner and our coffee pot right in front of it. Probably looks a bit crowded, but our kitchen is smaller and I can fill the coffee pot directly from the pull down faucet (I went with moen (sp?)). I pushed the sink as far as left in the 30 inch cabinet as I could and turned the right side into a pull out drawer where our garbage and recycles are now. Still working on trim and some touch up painting. Took these quick this morning so things might be a bit of a mess.

Hi Ruth, We've been living in our house for 6 months now and the Parade was back in July so I feel like I have a good overview on the whole experience at this point. We lobbied aggressively for discounts on everything but ultimately - maybe because our Parade of Homes is in a relatively smaller market - we only saved substantial amounts in a few areas. The builders kicked in some upgrades in terms of interior trim, insulation and recessed lighting that we probably would not have gotten otherwise, and those make a big difference in the quality of the home, so that's nice. The flooring was considerably less as well, allowing us to get most of the first level in hardwood. Not thrilled about the carpeting we went with as we feel that we were misled about the quality. Having 2000+ people walk on it during the Parade certainly didn't help either. Since we plan on replacing most of it anyway as we can afford more hardwood I guess it's an o.k. trade-off. Appliances, tile, plumbing & lighting fixtures as well as the entire kitchen we sourced ourselves from everywhere; IKEA, Overstock, Lowe's, Home Depot - you name it, we shopped there. It ended up being cheaper than the supply houses the builder directed us to with the Parade discount they offered (usually in the neighborhood of 10-25% off their already inflated prices). We figured if those places weren't going to even bother to be competitive with their prices then they didn't really care about our business OR having their products advertised in the home. We came in on budget in most areas without compromising the look or quality we wanted. Our home won most of the divisions in the Parade, including best overall home and we've since heard our builder got tons of referral business from it, so I guess we made the right decisions. That said, having all those people traipse through my house like they owned the place got old pretty fast. I wouldn't like a repeat of that experience. My husband enjoyed all the glad-handing and kudos for the kitchen he designed, purchased and built with IKEA cabinets so he had a better time. :) Good luck - it's a lot to take on but the more you're involved, the more you'll enjoy it.

I had a European Thermomix TM21 but it was a pain to have to use it with the large voltage converter so I sold it. I liked it and was going to buy the new American voltage TM but then TM got into trouble with selling th TM31's right up to the day that the new TM5's came out, without forewarning, and I did not like that. They also got into trouble in Australia for not issuing a safety recall. I now have an instant pot which I use all the time. Obviously different functions but the Instant pot functions work better with the way we eat anyhow, at 1/20 of the price.