I looked into the nana wall and several other options as well --- They are really cool, but in the end, we determined that our house location and set up didn't warrant the expense of these. Now, if we had an awesome view, we might have done this. My recollection of this in terms of pricing for Nana Wall and some of the other brands: I believe it was about $800 a foot for this --- so for a 12' opening, it worked out to about $9600 --- I looked at several manufacturers and the pricing was all in that ballpark. Will your doors open to a patio, a screened porch? This was a concern for us in this decision. We ended up putting a screened porch, so the Nana concept would have been great, because opening the doors wide would still be within the screen.... thus no bugs, etc invading the house. If not, you might want to consider with lights on in the house and the doors wide open, you might get every moth in town visiting! Another consideration is how to stack the panels. In our plan it was working out to be awkward --- and the "stack" would have been in the way. Just make sure that if you go with these, you have that planned carefully... some of them can stack inside a wall, which is pretty neat. Another consideration to think about..... look back at your pictures linked.... the transition from inside to outside.... if you are trying to make a very open space, be careful of that little half step transition.... it looks like a tripping hazard to me. I would want either a full step down, or preferably a level transition there to open up the space. The top picture has a small step, which can be an ankle breaker! Finally, if you are trying to maximize your view through the house straight out the back, maybe consider an odd number of doors so the exact center is glass, not the door frames meeting in the middle (your bottom picture does this glass in the middle way). If you think about your set of 4 doors concept, the dead center part will be about 8" of door frame, vs. glass. If you use 3 or 5 panels, the center view would be glass. This is why in the first few pictures they show the doors open, because it looks way better open than closed. But in the last picture, the view is great regardless. And.... while I think the standard is to have the center 2 panels open on french doors, it makes furniture placement more difficult, so just make sure you've thought about it! Good luck would love to see pics of the view, etc! Rachel

Swampwiz- Thanks so much for the info on Monarch. Will check them out. Energy rater la- Thanks again. A couple more questions if you don't mind. My DH and I had our apppointment with the building supply co that carries Windsor in our area yesterday. After seeing the windows & hearing the info on all 3 lines, the aluminum clad with wood interior & GBG sounds like the way to go for us if we do Windsor. They also had some Andersen displays in vinyl with wood interior. This is probably one of the very few vinyl exterior windows that I liked. What are your thoughts on Andersen? They recommended the 200 series & I brought up the 400 series. (Haven't done alot of research on Andersen--name is popular but just about everyone we've talked to has volunteered the info to stay away from Andersen without us even asking.) As far as the white vinyl clad wood windows vs. white aluminum clad wood windows, have you seen or heard of yellowing, sagging or warping at the level of quality we are using? The wood on the interior will be painted white as well. I plan on this being the last house (we're in our 30's) and I really want to minimize the chance that we will have to replace windows during that time. Lastly, hoping you could clarify something for me: low e2 is high solar gain (use in predominately cold climates), low e3 is moderate solar gain (use in climates that are pretty equal with hot & cold months), and low e4 is low solar gain (use in hot climates)-I know I probably have 2&4 mixed up, please correct me if I do. Considering that the front of our house (formal living room & dining room & kids rooms) faces south, rear (family room & kitchen & bonus) faces north, master and garage faces west and outlaw suite faces east, should I use a variety of low e2 & e3 or would you just triple pane the north & maybe west sides? (Keeping in mind that the rear of the house has a 16' covered porch & is almost completely windows on both levels to take advantage of the awesome views & the front of the house also has a 10'covered porch). Thanks again for all your help! Mythreesons- Our Pella Arch quote was $55K for SDL, $43K for GBG with similar # of windows. Jeld-Wen was $44K SDL & $37K GBG. We're waiting on the quote from Windsor. None of our quotes included the front door system either, but they did include 2 sets of double operating aluminum clad french doors & 1 single aluminum clad french door. We're building in northern Randolph county about an hour or so from Charlotte. We plan to break ground as soon as another property we own sells (know anyone interested in 46 acres in central NC?). I'm excited but I'm also scared to death! If you see the owner of the house like mine, please ask about the windows. If you wouldn't mind, would you please let him know I'd love to talk with him about any changes he made to the original floor plan and what he has found works really well about the house & what he would change. My email is lroberts72@triad.rr.com. Thanks for offering to talk with him if you see him! Anyone else out there with opinions on windows, please post. Thanks!

Marvin Ultimate is a wood frame rather than fiberglass. Its more expensive than Integrity overall and there are mixed signals about the longevity of cased wood windows versus fiberglass or vinyl. Marvin is as a whole is very highly regarded tho and they are the producer of both lines. The Ultimates have more customization options over fiberglass Integrity. There is just some things you can't easily do with fiberglass as compared to wood. For example, our home is going to have some gothic arch top windows. I couldn't get them in Integrity and had to again go Ultimate for those particular windows. And believe me, they aren't cheap (probably due to the custom gothic radius). But the outer colors coordinate between Ultimate and Integrity so it will hopefully be a flawless mix. Windows aren't installed just yet or I'd post pics. I wouldn't believe white painted interior on the wood ultrex would be any less clean looking than all ultrex assuming whoever is painting knows what they are doing. I'd definitely track down a showroom and compare the two lines side by side. With the Wood ultrex its just a more classic looking window profile I think. The all ultrex is quite plain and almost, I dunno, cheap looking in comparison. Its definitely the more durable option tho, no paint to scratch (although the fiberglass can be painted) or wood surface to ding... Its a judgement call for you really. The Ultimate sliders come in 4 panel yes, in 10, 12 and 16 feet wide it looks like straight out of the catalogue. OXXO configuration so the 2 middle sections open to form one opening and net clear openings here listed in my catalogue lead me to believe if both are open, there is no obstruction in the center. The 12' wide one has a net clear opening value of 57 7/16" (or 59 for the non french door) The ultimate sliders have 2 versions..basic patio door and french door. The french door version has wider rails framing the glass, to mimic the look of a french door. The basic version has more glass area and thinner rails so if you go that route make sure you choose the model you prefer To throw more choices your way they do also have these in 3 panel like the integrity but in greater widths. I see here a 12' three panel as well if you just want one active slider but a little wider than the 3foot operator of the 9 wide integrity..lol What you should be looking for to find out how drafty these types of doors are in order to compare them to each other is air infiltration values. Unfortunately with Marvin these can be a bit of a hassle to come by but you could take numbers from a similar manufacturers slider and compare it to your lanai or bifold doors to maybe get a rough idea.

Also check out Milgard windows and doors. I think they would be cheaper than Marvin. For my house, I installed custom commercial floor to ceiling windows and sliders (over 100 linear feet). They are very good quality and very well priced. Unfortunately, the guy who did them is no longer in business. You could google custom windows and see if you can get an estimated price quote over the phone.