I agree with those who said the view makes up for a lot. We bought an ugly duckling lake house that needed (and still needs) a whole lot more updating than either of the homes you've linked to. Sometimes I get frustrated with the plastic showers, the fake marble vanity tops ... and the green tub ... but slowly but surely we are turning this into our forever home. And in the meantime, when I think I just can't stand the ugly parts a moment longer, I look out at that view and know we made the right choice.

Your place looks amazing. I live in a lake house full time. Something to consider is the way you use your home, especially the bathroom. I can tell you the number one best thing I ever did (aside from buying the house itself :) was putting a door to the outside in one of my bathrooms. It gets used constantly all summer and keeps the sand and grime some what contained in the bathroom. Before I did that we would walk all the way through the house to the bathroom...no matter how much you brush / off rinse off etc... you get lots of sand everywhere! The bathroom is the most worked room in the house! Now they can go in and jump in the shower at the end of the day and come out without 10 pounds of sand! Don't get me wrong I love the sandy days, but it is nice for everyone not to feel bad about traipsing through the house with wet or sandy feet just to use the toilet. I would LOVE to have a toy garage that faces the lake, so much easier to get all the stuff put away and drying at the end of the day. A place to hang the 64 thousand wet things...

I think it depends on your personality and the personality of your guests or hosts. I visit some friends and it feels just like home, no issues. Others rarely host guests and I can tell that they are not into it. My goal for my home is to try and make my guest feel comfortable, and to have a lot of people around often, but our house is pretty small and unfortunately the guest bedroom has to serve double duty as my office . . . I know for some that would not be great. I for one don't mind a pull out couch in the living room but that's a horror for hubs. His son lives in HIS house, and it really bugs me that they can't be bothered to buy a nice pull out couch for the living room, and we oldsters have to sleep in bunk beds in the kids messy rooms. But then my grandmother had to sleep in a double bed with me when she visited, so turnabout is fair play I guess. We didn't have a guest room growing up, and it was a while before my brother was old enough to have twin beds in his room so that eventually my room became guest quarters. We finally got a proper family room with a pull out couch when we had our garage turned into a family room. But I can see why that would not be ideal for a lot of folks. My husband swears is it untenable to try and sleep on a pull out couch, and no one in his family is social, so having guests is practically unthinkable to him. We stay in a motel when we visit. I guess being a camper and living in communal quarters at camps during the first part of my young adulthood conditioned me to tune out of lot of situational "noise" when it comes to accommodations. I think some of this is introvert/extrovert stuff. I'm an extrovert, people being around does not bother me necessarily. Depends on the people and what they are doing. I have more tolerance for stuff than hubs. Does not mean my tolerance is unlimited, it's just that I hardly notice certain things that drive him batty. Noise bothers me, but he can hear someone breathing three rooms away and it will keep him up. Even a faint light stream and that's the end of his night's sleep. He doesn't like most accommodations, even motels and vacation rentals, he usually has some feature he zones in on that bugs him. Being a carpenter who builds houses, he can always find the flaw . . .

Awful nice of you to ask. I got with a local drafter (who I didn't realize hand draws) and came up with a close but still somewhat flawed plan. It is done to the level to get a more complete estimate on a build. I stopped short of trying to figure out the biggest problem with kitchen and dining area. Just sort of gave up, I liked the rest. But it remains a problem. I will have to hire someone to redraw if I figure it out. Generally its a pretty standard small ranch. I am trying to pack in as much future flexibility as possible but of course there are always ramifications. I wanted a potential future buyer to have the option of a second bathroom and bedroom upstairs, meanwhile I could use for storage (this will be on a crawl space) . This resulted in a 12 12 pitch which I'm concerned about making the house look top heavy. (Although I do love the scandanavian look of a high pitch they are usually on two stories). Since it was a single bathroom I sacrificed some space elsewhere to make it a little bigger. I thought about a double vanity but I'm single. So I did a single sink in the bathroom but the linen closet could be removed and a double vanity put in if someone down the road really wanted it. I would love a walk in shower since I never take baths but, oh well. I would like to do something with the "front" windows. The double hung thing blocks the view. Don't know what my options are though. Biggest problem, Kitchen/Dining area (as in there is none) I love a big living room, and don't care for traffic patterns through it. So the kitchen ended up where most would put the living room. Which makes the kitchen both have wasted space but not enough space for an eat in dining room. So there is no place to eat, not even a counter bar. In the summer one could use the porch. This is the biggest problem and I don't know how to fix without making the whole house bigger (200 a sq foot) or doing a bump out which sort of defeats the idea of a simple cheaper rectangle to build. Looking at it and how its just your basic standard little ranch its sort of amazing how long it took to get here. The front is cut off but its the same, a double hung on the other side of the slider which is in the middle