WRT home improvement on move-in: yes! I can install shelves and paint with the best of them (or with the middlingly mediocre of them, anyway), but tiling a floor and building a flight of stairs for the back deck (it is a full flight, in back--the lot slopes down from the street) seem like a lot to have to have to tackle right away.

I can recognize why everyone loves No. 2. I mean, seriously, what's not to love? But from a practical standpoint--and even, if you take my reverse-snobbery into consideration, from an aesthetic one--No. 1 just works better for me.