T-Minus 238 Days: Bonaire by Taylor Morrison

 We have extensively searched new builders in the Orlando area. One of the new build house designs we found that we like is the Bonaire by builder Taylor Morrison. 

Taylor Morrison is building communities all throughout the west side of the greater Orlando area. We found this house in the Lakeside community in Apopka. 

There are several things that are essential to our search. We want, what we are calling, "The Cluster". We want a kitchen that is open to a breakfast nook and living room. We want the breakfast nook and living room to look out onto the pool. The first floor layout includes The Cluster.

I prefer a two story house that has the master bedroom and an office on the first floor. The Bonaire provides that. I also want a Lanai that stretches across the back of the house, which is available with this design. Many models have the walk-in closets on the other side of the bathroom - I like how the Bonaire has the closet between the master bedroom and bathroom. 

What don't I like about the first floor? Anyone from the North East is likely confused by the position of the garage. Building lots in Florida are small, so, they typically build the houses sideways (compared to a house in the North East). What we would consider to be the side of the house is actually the front of the house in Florida. That isn't always true with every home design, but it is true for most. While a garage would normally be seen on the side of the house, it is very common to see the garage sitting in the front yard. Often the garage is built into the house (with the second floor built over the top). Therefore, the position of the garage in this home design is not a concern.

What is a concern is the size of the rooms. The room sizes are... OK. But not desirable. The master bedroom is much smaller than our New York home. And the dinning room would not fit our dinning room set. In fact, every room on the first floor is smaller than the rooms in our New York house.

The next thing we want is a separate area for our adult children. We are bringing our sons with us and want them to each have their own bathroom, for them to share a living room space, and to have their area away from our area. The Bonaire has this area on the second floor.

There are several things we don't like about the upstairs. First, the "Open To Below" area is a cute architecture feature, but, it is wasted space. While I like it, we need square footage and we are disappointed that there isn't an option to turn that space into another room. Next, the bedrooms on the right side are very small compared to what we want. Those bedrooms are smaller than our smallest bedroom in the New York house. In fact, the largest bedroom (Bedroom 2) is just slightly larger than our smallest New York bedroom. The size of the bedrooms is a disappointment.

In summary, we like the layout of the house but find the rooms in the house to all be too small.