The 5 Stages of Home Building: Doubt

Doubt is surely a natural part of the building process, right???

Yesterday, I visited our builder/subdivision website to retrieve our square footage numbers.... I wanted to (for no good reason) compare the size of our new house to some of the other houses Matt and I toured - and liked.

And, while I was on the D.R. Horton Mockingbird Crossing website... I noticed a house/floor plan that I hadn't noticed before.  

Part of me thinks this home is a new addition to their line-up.... (There aren't any of these homes in the neighborhood yet... and there are several of each of the other layouts.)  And, I just don't remember seeing this one as an option when we were in the sales center.

This is the "other house".   ----------->

At any rate... it kind of looks like the house we might design (here) if we were to design a house here.  It has some of the best features of all of the houses that we've liked so far.  AND.... the base price is lower than the base price of the house we're building....  (cue uneasy feeling).

I called my sister yesterday and told her to just listen while I listed all the reasons this new floor plan is perfect, but why the house we're building is ultimately better:)  

(I've read before that human beings have an uncanny ability to convince themselves that the decisions they've made are exactly the right decision - simply because they want them to be right.)

So in no particular order - here are some thoughts on these two houses.

The three car garage - this was a must for us!  We're used to having a basement and a place to park cars - so we've got the third bay for random storage.  On the house we're having built - well, first of all the third bay was an upgrade, and it comes standard on this "other house".  Our garage will be side entry which DOES give me more of the circle drive effect that I really wanted.  But... side entry garages can be a little harder on car tires...

The front - I might like the way the front of the "other house" looks a little more......  Although... I plan to put two Bahama shutters on the front of ours - which should balance it out quite nicely.  

The master bedroom - is the same size as our master bedroom.  If only the bedroom in the "other house" could have been even a foot smaller in either direction, I could have dismissed this plan in a minute, but alas... they're the exact same size.  THE CLOSETS however are much smaller in this model than in ours.

The master bath - the shower in the "other house" is bigger and it has a linen closet.  But, I will have a beautiful linen CABINET.

The upstairs bonus room - this is significant.  This "other house" would have given us an easy/clearly defined place to put all of the furniture that we used to have in our basement family room.  AND - Matt and I could have used the den and Bedroom #2 as offices - and still had a guest room.  However... when Matt and I used to have an upstairs family room (in our first house) we NEVER went up there.  That's the room that I used to say could fall off the house and it would be weeks before I would even notice.  And, we didn't really use our basement family room all that frequently in our last house.  And... that would just be more house to have to cool... and it would make for lower ceilings in our great room....

The lanai.... darnit, there's more covered area in the outdoor area of this "other house" - and better places to hang a TV outside.  OUR house on the other hand - has two separate covered areas... giving me the more sprawling backyard that I always like - in pictures at least:)

We have a breakfast nook and dining room (not that we really need it), the "other house" just has one eating area.

Our kitchen (due in large part to the higher ceilings) will be a little more grand...

And... I know it's funny to think about re-sale potential already, but when it's time to sell this house (in a market where the median age of the population is 61) a single-story home is going to have a bigger buyer pool than a house with an upstairs. 

Just had to get that off my chest.  

No new progress on our house as of yesterday.  We still have REALLY tall ceilings - painted a beautiful blue with fluffy white clouds placed sporadically.