I opened, hoping to see a farmhouse, but instead I saw a garage with a farmhouse attached. If you are building "in the woods," and especially if you have acreage, - please, please build a farmhouse that doesn't have the garage so prominent. fwiw, I can see why you are attracted to the plan - the kitchen photos are lovely, but that style kitchen can go into any other farmhouse (exterior) plan. That said, if you do end up building this plan, at least change the garage entrance to the side of the plan instead of the front.

I understand what you are trying to do with the 4 foot increments; however in real life they mostly don't work out that way because you have to account for the dimensions of the layers, such as drywall, finish trim, siding/brick/stone, etc. So it's important not to go OVER your increment, but it's very likely you will go slightly under most places, or else you will end up with slightly over on external surfaces. If you are planning for certain siding lengths on the exterior then this can put you into small pieces, etc. On the interior: depending on how you cover your windows, there may be space lost due to window coverings out into the room. For example, if you use curtains (and curtains are an energy saving layer at night when drawn during cold weather), they typically use up at least six inches into the room off the wall. So a window over a dresser will use up your dresser top with curtain overhang, etc. Or if the curtains go to the floor then you would have to pull your dresser out 6-8 inches from the wall. Likewise for the desk in your second bedroom. Don't forget this same concept with your barn door, too. You will have to pull furniture out 6-9 inches for the door to clear behind any furniture pieces. Right now you have furniture pieces in the track of your barn door, in the drawing. It's also very awkward to have a piece of furniture partially covered by a window, as it looks your master night stands will be. Much better to have pure wall behind them, or all window, but not in between - it will not look right visually. Remember that your birdseye view shows only the window width. You then have to visually account for more width due to casing/trim and then a few more inches still if you hang curtains and have the rod wider than the casing. Allow about six inches between the bed and a night stand, too. That six inch gap is the perfect place for an outlet bedside. But you also just need it for space. If you have a seating corner in the master bedroom, you will likely sometimes read while sitting there. Therefore you need real estate to put a desk lamp or floor lamp, for lighting. Next up to think about: lighting (and where the controls will be) for the dining and living rooms. This is more of a challenge than it first looks, because you need most your light coming from above in this over-sized single space. Normally you get a good chunk of light bounced off the walls in smaller rooms, but in the case of huge rooms then your light has to come from above and be adequate without being piercing to the eyes. You'll want at least two carefully placed floor outlets in the living room. You'll want to locate your dining table light fixture carefully so it ends up over the table correctly. We did a chandelier type fixture centered over the table, and then two down pointing cans, one on either side of the chandelier. In our case, the chandelier has frosted type glass and the bulbs in the glass pointing UP. It does a great job of washing the ceiling with light, but the table is muffled and rather dark. So we needed down light as well to increase the intensity of light on the table, which you want so you can see well when you are eating, and to highlight table decor. One thing you can do in the living room is plan wall sconces along the available walls that will wash the walls with light both upwards and downwards. Another approach is to place some ceiling can lights near walls, such that their light cones then hit and wash down the wall (if you don't want to have sconces on the walls) Otherwise the room will tend to look dark during non daylight times. Don't underestimate how lit walls will make the atmosphere inviting and cheerful, whereas non-lit walls, even with good ceiling light, tend to make a space dreary. Another great option is to use carefully planned LED strips up against the wall or ceiling, to make a light wash, similar to above cabinet lighting. These concepts do not have to be expensive to do or energy hogs, either, if done carefully. In our bedrooms we used wall mounted two x 4 foot fluorescent t8 fixtures, mounted horizontally on the wall up high. We then put up a curtain rod and valence/cornice to cover the fixture. Light washes the wall and ceiling from the top bulb, and washes down the wall from the bottom bulb, but does NOT glare into your eyes, due to the valence/cornice. Very cheap to do, very inexpensive energy-wise for the amount of light you get, very cheap parts to replace. Lighting is one area where you can EAT IT in your budget if you don't plan carefully, both in buying fixtures and in energy consumption. The three big challenges of "open concept" spaces are furniture placement in the absence of walls, lighting, and electrical outlet placement. (With a two story house you have another: infrastructure placement such as heating ducts and plumbing lines to reach the second floor, but this doesn't apply in your one-story house case.) Don't forget there are in-between models, too, to open concept. Half walls maintain the visual feel of open concept, but also allow for furniture placement against a (half) wall and outlets placed in (half) walls. One thing we did was put cased openings (like glassless windows between rooms) in the wall between our den and dining room. This was intermediate between a wall and open concept. It gave us the wall space we needed for furniture placement and in-wall infrastructure (ducts, etc.) but still gave visual sense of openness between the two rooms. It was a great balance for us. I'm not seeing glaring wasted space. There are a few pockets of space that are just... space. Like the chunk outside the entrance door to the master bathroom. There's a chunk in the guest bedroom. You'll want to trim the size of the shower in the master back into that niche and not bring it the whole size of the niche. This will cost much less to build, be MUCH more friendly to clean and maintain, and give you a chunk of "in-niche" space outside the shower where you can have your ceiling ventilation fan mounted (in our case we mounted two heat lamps on either side of the fan in that niche, but they are on separate control so we don't burn energy using them unless we are chilled). You have very generous spaces in general but not that much wasted space; part of it will be how you use the space and arrange stuff in it. One more thought: if you are a pet person, then plan for real estate for feeding, food storage, bed/crate, toy storage, litter box, etc. And a cabinet or drawer for pet related stuff (grooming brushes, treats, etc.) This post was edited by beautybutdebtfree on Wed, Jul 30, 14 at 22:59

As we just moved I am unable to find any pictures. I would suggest you look at small home floor plans and RV 5th wheel floor plans both would give you ideas on how to design such a small space. A few things I saw missing in your design is a fridge & shower. Now you are saying we can run to the inlaws. You don't want to run to their house in the middle of the night because you want to get something to eat or ah um get cleaned up after a romantic evening. And to live in a small space like this you need to make sure you not only truely love the person you are with you better like them too, as you have no place to get away. This is just a few things to think about. I think it is going to be a lovely place once you are done and you will enjoy it. I truely miss my camper and would sell this house and move back into it in a hearbeat if I could.

Will it be a modular home? Solar? Using a mortgage? Anything else special? Please provide some details of what you'd like. I'm not in SF, but am currently building a home about that size, so I might have useful experience. Do you have a lot already? Elevations are part of the design and drafting process. I used my builder's designer. But I did the layout myself. I had to consider my needs AND the appraisability (which made me adjust my needs). This might have been the most important aspect of the design process, and not one I thought about in advance.