The Venice

Yesterday our sales person (who rocks!) was able to take us to two Venice models -  one was under constrction and the other was finished a few weeks ago.  The visits were great.  We first visited a Venice that had no morning room and decided that if we couldn't get the morning room, we couldn't get the venice.  It was just too small.  We were okay with that and still going to go with our plan of getting the Florence (more on that later).  The other nice thing about seeing that house was that they had the wild berry cherry cabinets, which are the ones we chose.  They looked awesome!  At least one decision has been finalized.  The upstairs was great, as we already knew. 

When we went to the model that had the morning room, we instantly fell in love.  It was beautiful!  The morning room added so much to the downstairs!  It was awesome.  We also couldn't get over the gourmet island.  We had decided to just go with a small island, but this thing was awesome!  It really felt like we were standing in a gourmet kitchen.  So while we were hoping this trip talked us into the Florence, it didn't.

We were still thinking at this point that while we loved the Venice, getting the Florence would be so much more comfortable money wise.  Then we learned that if we build the Florence, there would be 3 Florences in a row, as 2 of our new neighbors are also building Florences.  While the elevations would be different and the exteriors would have a different look, we don't like the idea of our house looking awfully similar to our neighbors.  Plus, if we get the Venice, we'd be the first in the neighborhood to build one.  That would be cool.

So last night we did some number crunching again.  We found that if we put a little more into our down payment, we CAN afford to get the Venice, still have a comfortable payment, and still have a decent safety net.  We will not be able to get the brick, but we're okay with that.  We figure we can't really use the brick.  We can look at it, but we can't use it like we can the extra space we're getting inside the house.  So for now, we're going to move forward with the Venice.  We have another meeting tomorrow night to update the changes that have been made.  Unfortunately, we still have 12 days to change our minds.  I just want everything to be finalized so we can move on!