Picking a design

I had no idea there were so many different amateur boat-building materials, blogs, websites...so I was surprised at how difficult it was to decide which boat to attempt. Did I want a flattie, a V-bottom, or a round-bottom? How long? Plywood stitch&tape, lapstrake, strip-built?
The one criteria that probably had the biggest impact was the size of my garage, which limited the choice to less that 15 ft. An acquaintance at work had built the Stevenson Weekender (http://www.stevproj.com/PocketYachts.html), which is a really sweet-looking boat, but it seemed a little too long for my workspace. And I was leaning more towards V-bottom designs. Finally, after much internal debate, it came down to the Glen-L 15 (http://www.glen-l.com/designs/sailboat/gl15.html) and the Selway-Fisher Stornoway series (http://www.selway-fisher.com/GPDinghyover13.htm#RN). I decided to go with the latter, even though it looked like a tougher build, and it's not easy to articulate exactly why I liked it better...I guess once the design is narrowed down to a broad category (in my case, I wanted an open cockpit and the most sea-worthy boat I could get with a length under 15') in the end it comes down to which shape you find most pleasing.