The big house hunt. Part II

So, this is the part of the journey that is fuzzy. We looked at SO many model houses and spent hours and hours going over floor plans, making lists of what we are looking for in a house and determining our budget.

We fell in love with several houses, and fell out of love with several.

Basically, our wish list looked something like this:

- Open kitchen with pantry
- Lots of windows
- 2 car garage
- On a cul-de-sac for Joe’s training
- New construction
- 2 extra bedrooms, for either guest space or Joe’s “man cave”

Not too hard right? It was tough, because a house could have all of these things, but still just not feel right. It’s hard to explain, but if you can’t picture living in a house, we wrote it off.

Here are a few of our favorites.

The Sullivan by Lennar




What we liked:
- The price
- Curb appeal
- Master was downstairs
- Laundry was downstairs
- Large living room
- Lots of windows
- Kitchen had nice window and lots of storage space
- 4 bedrooms, which meant room for the man cave, a guest room and a den

What we didn’t like:
- 2 story house, which wasn’t our ideal layout
- The refrigerator stuck out like 2 feet into the kitchen.
- Two of the bedrooms have dormer windows. While cute, they made a 4 x 10 area that you couldn’t really use for much. It also made the room that we would use for the den only good for a den. There was no way to fit furniture in that room.

The Litchfield by Ryland






What we liked:
- One story with bonus room
- Large kitchen with breakfast nook
- Lots of windows
- Nice master suite
- Felt larger than it really was
- Lots of storage space
- I’ll admit, I fell for the model home. It was gorgeous

What we didn’t like:
-Price
-The bonus room wasn’t standard. Add another $18,000 for that
-Cost to do any upgrades was expensive

The Cypress by Lennar

What we liked:
- 1 story house
- Has a standard bonus room
- Kitchen had lots of storage and counter space
- 3 bedrooms, all of which were usable
- Porches in the front and back
- Easy to upgrade. You didn’t have a laundry list of options to choose from, it was a basic package, which made it affordable and easy to upgrade

What we didn’t like:
- Towards the upper end of our price range. We could afford it, but we don’t want to spend that much if we don’t have to
- The living room was on an angle, which left me baffled as to how to make it flow with the house
- It has a dining room and a breakfast nook, which we don’t really need

The Barrington by Beazer





What we liked:
- The price
- The kitchen was great. It has lots of storage space, counter space and light.
- No extra rooms
- Dining and living room were open but still had their own spaces
- A big loft upstairs
- Lots of closets
- A good size guest bedroom and room Joe could use for the man cave
- Good “home” feel
- Big windows

What we didn’t like
- The roof pitch made the house look a little odd from the street
- 2 story
- Living room a little awkward from a furniture placement standpoint

We really liked this house. If we were to go with a new construction house, this would be it.

Obviously something changed, or else there wouldn't be a part 3. Check that out tomorrow.