[ajbrown]

Originally Posted by gary42651

I wish I would have picked a house with a golf cart garage!!!!!

I would love to have a golf cart garage. We will soon be a two cart family and having that extra space would be great.

Originally Posted by gary42651

I wish I would have picked a house with a golf cart garage!!!!!

[uujudy]

Originally Posted by karensue

Only 1 thought. Do not understimate the size of house you want or need. MANY of us move multiple times, because we fail to really know what we want. We bought a large courtyard villa, because we thought we would be here part time. The Villages is too great a place to be, and lots of cheap plane fares make it easy to get from Orlando to anyplace else (think Disney). We ended up with a large premier home and are so glad we did that move to stay here permanently.

This is true!
On the other hand....
We saw both of our parents move to Florida and buy big houses with all the trimmings. After a few years they started downsizing. They didn't want to do (or pay people to do) all the work associated with a big house. After 3 'downsizing' moves for each set of parents, they each settled for much smaller houses.

We looked at how we used our big house in Utah and discovered that 90% of our time was spent in the kitchen, patio, family room and bedroom. We had 3 spare bedrooms & bathrooms that weren't being used except for visitors. The living room and the dining room were only used for entertaining and holidays. We took all this into consideration when we decided to skip the designer house and go straight to the 3 bedroom villa.

So far, after a year of living here, the little villa is working out OK. There's so much to do here in The Villages that we basically treat the villa like a 3-bedroom hotel with cooking and laundry facilities. It seems that we come home from our daily activities and flop in front of the TV from exhaustion. Except for the recent cold snap, we're only inside late at night. We expanded the lanai and added a birdcage. That's our new family room and breakfast room. Bottom line for me: I don't want to reschedule my activities to take care of a house. Been there; done that.

* I wish we had a bigger garage, but that would mean we could accumulate more stuff. As it is, we have to clean out the junk as quickly as it accumulates, and that's OK with me.
* I wish we had another room that I could use only for painting, especially when houseguests are using the sofabed in 'my' room.
* It's a little tight when the house is full of visitors, but that's OK too. If we make it too nice for them, they'll never leave!
* After the guests leave I can clean the entire place, top to bottom, in under 2 hours.
* Mr. Judy can have all the yard work done in an hour -- and he's persnickety about his bush trimming.

I would suggest you take a look at how you use your current house, and make your decision based on that. Do you entertain at home a lot? Then maybe the designer is right for you. Do you enjoy meeting friends for dinner at a restaurant? Maybe you don't need all the extra 'entertaining' space? Only you can decide what's right for you.

Just adding my 2 cents,
Judy

[another Linda]

Wow. Judy. Lots of food for thought. We have a 2/2 CYV and I have always had in the back of my mind that it might be too small for full-time. But maybe not. Our experience over Christmas turned out great. We had all our immediate family here plus some in-laws that came and went. We varied in number from 13-25. I rented 2 other places so we all had our space. If anything it worked out better than having Christmas in our big 5/5 house here in Syracuse. Maybe that is the solution -- when you have lots of company just rent a place or 2. Still might be cheaper and work out better.

[Allen]

Thanks once again to everyone who has responded to this question. It is very helpful to us and a lot of other people as well, I am sure.

Although almost all aspects of moving and buying a new home are personal decisions, hearing from a variety of people about what they might do differently really helps those of us preparing for the move to TV.

Please keep those ideas and suggestions coming!

[uujudy]

Originally Posted by another Linda

Maybe that is the solution -- when you have lots of company just rent a place or 2. Still might be cheaper and work out better.

Great idea, Another Linda!

[JMarkle]

I see several posts regarding which way the lanai faces. I'm thinking that it should face south. That way it wouldn't be so dreadfully hot in the summer and would still be cozy during the winter. What to the locals think?

[Hoosiervillager]

If I had it to do all over again I would have bought a designer home instead of a patio villa. We bought in June 2008 thinking this would just be a vacation home for us. Visit 3-4 times per year staying for 2-3 weeks at a time. If things had remained that way I think the patio villa would still suit me just fine. But we loved it here so much we never wanted to leave. So we sold our home up north and moved here. My DH thinks the villa is just fine. But I really would like to have a third bedroom. My hobby is rubber stamping and my supplies take up a lot of space. I'd like to have a bedroom just for my stamping studio. And I really hate to give up the current guest room for that. What's important to you? I've decided that my hobbies are very important now that I have more free time. I also think I'd rather be in a neighborhood of houses rather than villas. My villa street has 13 homes on it. Only four of us live here full-time. The others are mostly rentals and a couple of snowbirds. I know that could also happen in a designer neighborhood but I don't think it is as likely. So, most likely, we will be listing our villa this spring and buying a designer home. Location is important to us. We are currently in Hemingway and want to stay in Hemingway, Duval, Bonita, or St. Charles due to proximity to so many executive golf courses. Fortunately I love decorating a new place so I'm looking forward to starting over again.

[JUREK]

For sure we could use the extra space with the garage. I love the location of my house but I do wish it had just a bit more privacy in the back. Also would definitely still buy in TV. No other place like it.

[sschuler1]

We opted to buy more house and less lot, so we will eventually end up with the "lanai kiss" as you so succinctly put it. Right now, the lot behind us is empty, but there will eventually be another home there. We decided that we are only at home late in the evening, and we can always shut our curtains if we feel the need for more privacy. Our lots are also slightly offset, so it should be only minimal issues. One side of our lanai is a wall of our bedroom, so we are only open on two sides of our lanai. We feel that it is going to be a non-issue.

We opted for a four bedroom designer for a few reasons. We have a complete guest suite behind a pocket door, including a queen size bedroom, full bath and den with tv and couch. I also have a seperate room for all my music equipment and crafts, that I can access even when guests are in the house. We turned our dining room into an office because we have never entertained formally and didn't plan on starting now. Our breakfast nook is large enough to hold our table and chairs, even when I put both leaves in the table! I also like the fact that we don't have to walk through our utility room to get into the house from the garage. We put a lot of thought into how we would be using our house, and made sure that we were buying a house that all the space was going to be utilized. Only you can know what is going to work for you....so happy hunting!

My best advice: once you settle on the model that you want, find out all the options that are available on that model before you buy. You don't want to find out that an option was available that you wanted, and you just didn't know about it before you bought. Particularly on the items that can't be changed afterward, like 4' expansion on the garage, 2' forward extension on the house, 2' extension on the lanai, etc....

[elevatorman]

We bought a lot that backs to a cul-de-sac the nice thing is our back yard is only about ten feet but the lot behind us has the side yard as our rear. It is hard to explain. There is a grassy area to the rear of our lanai that is the size of a tennis court. The 4 lots that make up this area each have a triangle of land as side yards. The only thing they can do with it is grass or other landscaping. I get the view and they maintain it.

[herbaru]

Originally Posted by sschuler1

We opted to buy more house and less lot, so we will eventually end up with the "lanai kiss" as you so succinctly put it. Right now, the lot behind us is empty, but there will eventually be another home there. We decided that we are only at home late in the evening, and we can always shut our curtains if we feel the need for more privacy. Our lots are also slightly offset, so it should be only minimal issues. One side of our lanai is a wall of our bedroom, so we are only open on two sides of our lanai. We feel that it is going to be a non-issue.

We opted for a four bedroom designer for a few reasons. We have a complete guest suite behind a pocket door, including a queen size bedroom, full bath and den with tv and couch. I also have a seperate room for all my music equipment and crafts, that I can access even when guests are in the house. We turned our dining room into an office because we have never entertained formally and didn't plan on starting now. Our breakfast nook is large enough to hold our table and chairs, even when I put both leaves in the table! I also like the fact that we don't have to walk through our utility room to get into the house from the garage. We put a lot of thought into how we would be using our house, and made sure that we were buying a house that all the space was going to be utilized.

Thanks for this post, you have me rethinking the Ponderosa Pine. The layout is great. Now if I could only close off the kitchen it would be my perfect house!

[sschuler1]

herbaru - we thought the same thing about the kitchen. We really wanted the closed kitchen because we wanted the wall space in the living area to back the couch up to, which then allows for a little more walking space in the living room. But now that we are in the house, we really like the open area. I can watch tv with my hubby while I am making dinner! It also makes the area look large and open. We have enjoyed having people over a few times already, and they all tend to gather around the kitchen area which would not have happened in the closed kitchen. I have also used the counter area there for a buffet line when I had my mahjong group over for lunch. We also know that the open kitchen would be better for resale if we ever decided to move again. (NOT HAPPENING!!!!)

[NJblue]

Originally Posted by JMarkle

I see several posts regarding which way the lanai faces. I'm thinking that it should face south. That way it wouldn't be so dreadfully hot in the summer and would still be cozy during the winter. What to the locals think?

Yes, that's what we have and it works out just as you said.