Oooooh, that sounds so lovely! I think the hardest part is going to find a farmhouse plan with all the bedrooms down. Your 1st floor footprint is going to be quite large, and farmhouses seem to have a full second story, unlike a cape or low country style which has a 1/2 story up. Honestly, you sound like a great candidate for hiring an architect to make your vision real. It sounds like it will be your forever house and you will want it to be perfect for your family. Can't wait to follow your progress!

I agree that with your unique requirements, you would have the best result by consulting an architect. I also wanted a farmhouse style plan and we had a hard time finding a plan that would work for us and ended up designing it ourselves.

We wanted a main floor master, formal dining and formal living, along with informal family room/kitchen spaces. This made our main level much larger than the second floor. To balance this with wanting a traditional 2 story farmhouse look, I designed the house to look like an old four square, with a one story "addition" tacked onto the back, and the garage attached to the "addition" portion. I basically tried to make it look like a farmhouse that had been added on to over time, while keeping the 2nd floor substantially smaller than the 1st. Here are some pictures while still under construction. Obviously the porch and other items are not yet finished!

Good luck with the process, your site sounds wonderful!

I may go with a 1.5 story with the dormers style if I can't find the perfect farm house. I do like that look as well. How did you decide how big your main floor would be?

Your acreage sounds absolutely lovely. Do show us some photos sometime!

Meanwhile, you don't mention how much square footage you're envisioning but your description of what you wanted reminded me of a house plan that I'd looked at a LOOOONG time ago when my folks were looking to build. They too wanted 3 bedrooms all on one level in a farmhouse look.

Took me awhile to dig the plan back up again but here it is. The staircase going up to the bonus room is enclosed on the plan but could be opened up to give you the "staircase to decorate for Christmas" that you want. Other than that, it pretty much seems to meet your program.

I'd probably want to do some tinkering with the masterbath area and pull the garage out some more in order to make room for a mudroom and powderoom between the garage and staircase. Might also want to enlarge the entire plan a bit because some of the rooms seem just a bit too tight to me. But at least this might at least give you a starting point to show your architect.

Here is a link that might be useful: Farmhouse plan

There's not much that is typical about a traditional American farmhouse except a small rectangular or L-shaped footprint, two stories, and out buildings attached to the back and no garage.

Since you have no practical use for a second floor, the stairway will be an expensive luxury. What might you put on the upper level to justify the cost?

For a 1 1/2 story house I would suggest what is called a "raised cottage" in the historic Tidewater South. Of course, you might need to lower the first floor height; the only reason for the raised foundation was the high water table, high humidity and potential flooding.

Here is a link that might be useful: raised cottage images

Sorry, I missed the program for the upstairs.

While I'm at it I suggest that when looking for home designs it is helpful to be patient and first think in terms of general building type and massing instead of a specific floor plan. When you have a dozen photos of houses you like take them to an architect and let him/her suggest floor plans that work with your vision and your site.

And let the architect oversee the observe the construction work so you don't have to come back to ask us how to deal with a contractor screw up.

Mommy2twocuties, we determined our main floor square footage by first deciding which rooms we had to have on that floor. As far as room sizes, one thing I did to visualize was to measure the sizes of rooms we had in our existing house and use that as a jumping off point.

For example we had a dining room at the existing home that was 11x11. I knew from living in that space that it was much too tight for the table and china cabinet that we had and the buffet that I want someday. Based on that, I knew that 14x16 was the minimum size that I wanted.

We also used the same formula for determining approximate sizes for the family room, bedrooms, walk in closets and kitchen. Because our existing rooms already had the furniture and stuff that would be moving with us, it made the numbers feel real to us and give some additional perspective.

Once you know what you want/need for rooms on a floor, and the approximate size of each, you can better ball park the square footage that you are looking at. It will still bloat up with hallways, stairwells and closets, but you will know if you need to be looking at 1500, 2100, or 2800 square feet to accommodate your wants.

The second photo I posted is from an architectural firm that does work in the South. It would help a great deal to know where the project is located.

You won't be able to get the plan for free but establish the concept before worrying about the way the rooms are arranged.

Here is a link that might be useful: Historical Concepts Architects

If I had the budget I would use Historical Concepts. I can't exactly put my thumb on what "it" is but they've got "it".

Below is another architect who has a less formal style, but the homes look great.

Here is a link that might be useful: Allison Ramsey