Interior ceiling height, porch facing wall and glass size/area (relative to total wall area), other walls exterior facing glass windows/walls, interior colors, porch direction, depth, width and ceiling height, porch floor material and color are a few criteria that all play a strong part in asthetics, interior light levels and feelings of grandeur. One can't single out one aspect of a design and expect it work without taking everything else into account. The same goes for every other living space in the home, how much care and attention to detail is put into it's design, will reflect the joy and satifaction you get out of it. The same design principles apply to almost every human made objects around us.

Creekside may be right that if you CAN'T come up with the cash, you're already in trouble... except that it sounds like you CAN come up with the cash. The question is whether you want to spend 2/3rds of your available slush fund for this particular add-on. Since your builder is financing, I can certainly understand him not wanting to add something (on a builder finance basis) that might raiss the cost to build above the amount you would be able to get a mortgage for later on. After all, if you can't get a mortgage for the full amount (and can't come up with the difference), the builder will be forced to either lower his price to you or find another buyer. No wonder the builder wants you to come up with the difference in cash now. As for adding the balcony, I would think that a private "owner's balcony" above the porch would add significant value to the home. Whether it would add $12,000 in value tho, I can't begin to say. Have you considered getting a private appraisal of what the house would be worth if the balcony were added? I assume the builder must have already gotten an appraisal of the house as originally designed or he wouldn't be willing to finance the build for you. The same appraiser could probably give you a new appraisal fairly easily. Understand that a private appraisal won't be binding on your bank but it just might give you an idea of whether the bank's appraisal is likely to be enough to cover the added cost. Perhaps if the private appraiser appraises the house with balcony at $12K or more over the appraisal of the house without balcony, your builder might be willing to add it if you agree to pay half the cost in cash now. He would be taking a much smaller risk of the house not appraising for enough for you to pay off his financing. If you do decide to go with the balcony, be sure your builder slopes the porch roof under the balcony so that it sheds water and then add the decking above that. If the porch roof is flat and has the deck built above that. Also, a roof over the balcony will help with water shed issues since less water will land on the deck and seep between the decking boards. Also, if it is roofed, then if you ever decide you want too, you could screen the deck in or even close it in with removable windows for year-round use.

Yes we did follow all directions. For this large of an area there is a lot of labor because you have to tape and caulk all seams and screws with the Wedi Sealant. Right after the last screw was down the first tile went down. Here is the picture of the completed Wedi surface. You can see we are using the Schluter expansion joints on the edge and through the middle. Double careful not to have cracks. The other thing we did was to pre-place the railing posts directly onto the plywood. I had the railing guy make a 4" plate with welded posts to it. We cut out the wedi board and placed it on the plywood and then wedi taped over the top of it. The plate and bolt heads are just at the level of the top of the 10mm wedi board. After the deck is tiled the railing guy comes over and levels the rail, cuts the post to the right length and welds the railing to the post. The previous rail was attached to the top of the tiles and of course cracked every single one.

cpartist, I like what you did with the spa. I worry that it will make the swimmable portion of the pool to small, though. Maybe I'll throw that question over to the pool forum. In an ideal world we would just make the pool longer, but it's just not possible with the code restrictions. I also agree about the bbq. Going to brainstorm this with our architects when they get back from vacation. I'm leaning towards pushing the pool against the carport (it was there in one iteration of our outdoor space) and moving the outdoor kitchen to the wall along the entry where the outdoor dining table currently is). It would be nice to walk out from the kitchen to the grill. Not sure it's feasible, though. Looking more at the numbers you crunched on the great room, I'm thinking we take another foot back from our overhang (it's currently 9' to provide shade) and give it back to the living room. Then we could have 4' between the dining / living and 5' between the kitchen island and dining table.