Hi all, Thank you for the recommendations and leads!!! zone4newby, I've been raising chickens for years, so I have a good idea of the living arrangements I want for them. Chicken tractors are not great in my locale, I will have a large fixed coop. I was more trying to figure out how to save building costs by combining the car storage with farm storage and animal housing on one foundation.... I'd certainly make separate, walled-off spaces though! Chicken dust would permeate the cars and anything stored in the garage really quickly, otherwise ;) I will look at sunplans! bmh4796 and oaktown, thank you for the leads! I will look further into those. The Russel Versaci plans I'd seen before were for REALLY teeny houses, so I'll investigate further. It's weird, there seem to be lots of sites for REALLY small (I've been driving around looking at farmhouses locally and what continues to stymie me is the car storage. I have not seen one example yet of an attractive way to include 2-car car storage, barn, and small house :(

Disclaimer: My comments are no holds barred, since this is a magazine spread. I am critiquing professionals' work (normal), rather than critiquing an individual's home (not done). First, the exterior is dull. It looks like a tract home, only oversized. That's a fail. As for the interior, I think we have seen this about a hundred times before. I agree with Tibb on this, the only statement it makes is a bank statement. A client should expect more. Or maybe that is why I have always found designers disappointing? They can certainly make handsome interiors, but they often lack spark, personality, quirk, interest. Maybe that is what the wildly expensive, rarified designers can do. Or the new ones starting out? I know it is tough, because this look is probably what clients want. But you are designer with a decent budget (eg I am assuming those are genuine Barcelona chairs in the foyer, and that is 10k right there for the two of them) who has submitted this to a national magazine. I expect something creative and interesting under such conditions, not a rehash of things we have seen in seemingly every newly built East Coast beach house for the last 20 years. I only saw one thing that looked new to me; the MBA tub. I think it's gorgeous. If I were nitpicking, I am not sure it is a perfect fit, since I think it looks more Manhattan then Montauk (or wherever), and especially since I don't recall similar notes elsewhere in the house. HHIreno, I had to laugh at your pillow comment. In that banquette photo, only the tiniest of tushies could perch. That may just be photo shoot styling overload. The pillow tags may well be taped to the back and it's all heading back to HomeGoods when the shoot is done. Also at the banquette, the table space is totally insufficient for the number of people you can seat there. Unless it is for serving airline peanuts. PS As a reader its interesting to see photos of the HO, but most people I know deride that. A photo of the kids is to me, quite odd. Just sayin'.

@gracie01 brick veneer (not structural), if old and moisture gets in, can falter and fall. It's not the brick that fails, it's the wall ties holding the brick to the backing material, either wood or metal framing or another brick or stone wythe that fails.Failed wire brick tie. In some cases, through negligence or ignorance there may not even be ties! Edinburgh Oxgangs Primary School veneer wall collapse. No ties used at all, according to a BBC investigation. Brick veneer is largely a 20th C. phenomena, with the first documented use occurring in 1899. As the metal ties rust away, support is lost and the veneer moves. In only one municipality I've built in, were longer-lived stainless ties required. Otherwise there were no requirements re ties. If the mason were supplying ties, count on the cheapest and flimsiest available. In the house we're currently living in, the masons used nails to tie the brick to the structural block. Where the back of the block is visible in the garage, around the end of each nail a quarter sized section of block has fallen off as the nail rusted. The house will be demolished by the next buyer, so there's no concern.

Frankly your home is gorgeous and fits into the landscape nicely already, so no need to "guild the lily" and right now what you have is relatively low maintenance. The low fence is a little primitive, but could be replaced by something similar only nicer. I imagine that is to guide cars into the driveway? Otherwise not really needed. And I will add my voice to "no" on the white stones. Why call attention to gravel with such a high contrast color? If you want white, a gorgeous white flowering dogwood that you put a deer fence around until it is grown up enough to take it, or spray religiously with "Deer Off" as Marymd suggested.