I'll try to help out, since I've lived here for about five years and have my aircraft based at PAE.
Weather. First, it's not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
In the summer (June through September) I'd say that 90+% of the days are great VFR. Our summers out here are amazing, and daylight lasts until almost 9PM. The rest of the year is more hit-or-miss. Each week there will be a few days that are good for VFR, but of course there will be weeks when those days don't line up on a Saturday or a Sunday. It is, on balance, probably a bit worse than most of the northern part of country when it comes to flyable wintertime days, but not terrible.
Generally speaking, it's a fantastic place for recreational flying. If you want to go places on a schedule outside of the summer months, though, you really need IFR, FIKI, and ideally two turbocharged engines or a turbine. VFR-on-a-schedule is definitely a summer-only thing.
Location. If you're in Bothell, Paine (PAE) is a great choice. It's a great airport with excellent services and is very close by. The controllers are helpful and skilled. It's got a 9k x 150 runway on the West side and a 3k x 75 runway on the East side. I can't use the small runway in my bird---so I don't have direct experience there---but by looking at it, I think they're so far apart that wake considerations should be pretty minimal (at least compared to something like SNA). You also don't get stuck being sequenced in with the big IFR arrivals or get asked to do stuff like fly your final at 120 knots for spacing. You even get a separate tower frequency, so while you're flying out of a "big" airport, it probably won't really feel like that. Lots of flight training here, and the controllers know how to handle it. Since it's basically Boeing's playground, it's kept in great shape.
Hangars. This is a bit less of a rosy picture. As you'd expect with Boeing in our backyard, there's a lot of aviation activity around here, and hangars at the "big three" (BFI, RNT, and PAE) are at a premium. I didn't look at RNT given where I live, but both at BFI and PAE, you're looking at about a year long waitlist and $500 - $1000 /month.
HOWEVER, you've got some options. Harvey field (S43) is a great little airport that's just 10 miles East of Paine. They definitely have hangars there (I've seen them from the air), and I bet the prices/wait times are a lot more reasonable. With a 2,700' runway, you're not having to compete with the infinity wealth out of Microsoft and Amazon. It's probably only 15 minutes longer by car from Bothell.
Arlington (AWO) is also a great little airport, and given its distance from downtown and the super-wealthy suburbs, I'd think that, again, you'd have a lot more hangar options. It's a bit of a drive from Bothell, but I don't think it'd be terrible, especially on the weekends outside of rush hour.
It's really a great little corner of the country. Probably the most aggravating part of living here---if you drive anything other than a Prius or Leaf---is being lectured about your "carbon footprint" by billionaires who glide around in Teslas (green!) and then proceed to pump fifteen thousand gallons of diesel into their enormous yachts for a quick weekend on the water without a second thought.
I hope that's helpful! PM me if you're ever up here, and I'll take you for an aerial tour!
