Okay, it sounds as if you just want a house with a front elevation that looks very similar to the Southern Living plan but which would have the interior rearranged so significantly that it would be an entirely new plan. If so, your local architect would only be using the image of the Southern Living plan as "inspiration" for the front elevation and would probably not be infringing copyright - unless he made the front of the house look identical to the SL plan. So maybe you don't really need to purchase a license to the SL plan after all. But it sounds as if your local architect doesn't "get it" even after seeing your inspiration picture. Perhaps you need a different architect. Or is is possible that the room arrangement you want simply won't fit into a farmhouse with a tall narrow front elevation (which is a good part of the charm of the SL plan). If you want a house that is tooooooo big, or you want too many rooms facing either the front or the back views, then your architect probably keeps winding up with something that is broader than it is tall... and therefore cannot possibly be made to look like the elevation you picture. I had a friend who once insisted that she wanted a nice compact basically rectangular one-story "cottage." But then she started describing all the rooms that just had to have a view of the lake on one side of her property and it quickly became obvious to me that there was no possible way to meet her desires. Her vision of the interior was just incompatible with her vision of the exterior. Ultimately she wound up building a long thin boom-a-rang shaped home that was mostly one room deep. It looked nothing at all like the "little cottage" she originally THOUGHT she wanted but every major room in the house has a view of that lake and it is a gorgeous home. If your interior floor plan vision isn't totally incompatible with your exterior inspiration picture, there is probably already a farmhouse design out there somewhere that comes close to meeting your needs and, when finished would look similar to the SL plan. Why don't you post your "program" (how many bedrooms? baths? garage bays? master upstairs or down? laundry upstairs or down? open plan kitchen/great room or not? office? media room? playroom?) here on GW? Maybe someone here will know of a perfect or near perfect plan that could be modified more easily than the SL plan. I know that finding the perfect plan is very difficult and when you hire an architect and he doesn't seem to be able to "get it", it can be extremely frustrating. BTDT, so you have my sincere sympathy.

I strongly urge that you do not buy Proline. I recently purchased a Proline insert for my custom hood. I had the hood built around the specs for the Proline insert. I researched liners and was intrigued by videos put out by Proline. I actually called the company to get more information on a liner. After speaking with a Proline rep they convinced me that this would be a good liner. I was concerned about the low price, but the rep assured me that was a promotional price, and they wanted to get reviews on the product. My review: TERRIBLE, MISTAKE, CHEATED. Model: PLFL CL 3416D. The description of this liner is that it is quiet. FALSE. Stand next to a jet engine during takeoff...that is how loud it is. If you intend to have a conversation in the same room, be prepared to yell at each other and even then you might not be heard. This liner is unusable if you intend to be in the same room. It is so loud you can hear it outside the house. The boast "runs at a maximum noise level of 4-5 sones, or the volume of a quiet conversation, meaning that it is extremely quiet" right on their website - it's an absolute lie. When I contacted Proline and asked for help with a solution to the problem their attitude was "too bad, you bought it, it's your problem". They said I installed it incorrectly. It was installed by my professional, licensed general contractor. The home inspector actually failed the final inspection in part because of the Proline liner. The inspector said air was blowing back down into the cooking area. I found mounting holes in the housing for the fans that wa blowing air back down the liner. I had to cover them with duct tape. I remodeled my kitchen and bought a custom hood. The hood was built around the dimensions for this liner. Now i am stuck with it. IT IS ABSOLUTE GARBAGE. Buy a Venta Hood or Z-Line...don't buy a Proline. Junk and no support. Beyond disappointing. My plan now is to gut this piece of junk, purchase a remote blower and figure out how to install it into the attic since I am stuck with this junk. Seriously, do not buy this liner and don't do business with Proline...they make false claims on their website, they do not stand by their products and their customer support is no help at all." UPDATE: Proline has now changed their website on the sones rating. They duped me, maybe I have saved some other unfortunate soul from falling for their false advertising.

Lots of useful points here, thanks. After doing some measuring, we would up tentatively deciding that we'll put in a 36" sink cabinet. We'd have so little room in a 24" cab around a garbage disposal (assuming same model we have now, and assuming the drain is in the center) that we'd be hard pressed to store trash under the sink. So with a 24" cabinet, we'd probably wind up losing 15" somewhere else to making a dedicated trash pull out. Thus it's actually efficient to just go to the 36" sink base. (The 30" doesn't work as well as 24 and 36 sizes, for various reasons involving window placement and ikea sizing.) If we stay with this decision, it seems we'll have a lot of latitude in selecting a sink size / configuration. I'll almost certainly go ahead and move to a larger sink - the question will be whether to maximize the potential of the large cabinet or keep the sink scaled to down a bit since the kitchen is smallish and the window in front of which the sink will be set is just 30". With the current cabinet choices open to me, my main work areas in the kitchen will be 33" to the right of the sink cabinet base, and 54-61" on the left of it. Plus however much smaller the sink opening is than the 36" span of the base cabinet. A little more prep space is always a good thing, but so is making dirty mixing bowls disappear.

Yes, you can build a nice little working greenhouse from old windows. We did a 10x16 one about 15 years ago and I am still using it. Here it is in it's original configeration...All windows were wood framed salvage material. We cleaned them up, removed all old hardware. The roof windows are old double glazed, french doors. They were tempered glass. The side windows were old single glaze, storm windows. The north side did not have many windows and all solid walls were insulated. There is an automatic roof vent and a small exhaust fan on a thermostat. It is wired for electricity but I use a 50 gallon barrel filled from a hose as my water supply. I used to keep it modestly heated in the winter and covered it with a clear solar pool cover for those months.Because most of the windows were already 100 years old and the french doors were never meant to be roofing material, after a dozen years there began to be some rot. We did a major renovation of the south side roof and front wall. I found 2 used commercial skylights for $25 and bought some used modern vinyl windows from a salvage yard...a couple of them open and have screens. The building is still very useful as a greenhouse and also retains heat better now.