If it's a breezeway, I would not paint it red. That's too close to the house, with the acreage you have. Build a shop/barn further from the house, if you want to paint it red.

Weathered blue would look lovely. Maybe have the trim on the house the same color? Look for inspiration pictures to see what looks good. Remember, 20 acres is a much different scale than a smaller lot.

Have fun with the build! And don't forget a mudroom...we live on acreage and you're going to need it! :)

i'd be interested to see a plan similar to what you describe. Is it a ranch or a two story? We are building on 8.5 acres in the country an I haven't found anything that I love that doesn't just look like a subdivision house transplanted to the country.

As to your color question, if the home is soft, the garage a barn red IMO might be too much. It would draw the attention to the garage instead of the beautiful home you are building. Good luck on your build! Look forward to what you decide.

I say let the garage be a garage, let a barn be a barn. :) Just paint your barn red!

I agree with Amber. If you are going soft tones for the house the garage will be called attention to and maybe you don't want that (even though the cupola and details sound very charming)?

Mostly, they match. But there are those with the red barn...when I see that, I think of New England. Many of the old farm houses in New England were all attached outbuildings that finally led to the barn so in winter, you could tend the animals without having to go outside. A friend of the family had one in NH and as I recall, there was the main house and then off the kitchen was the summer kitchen and off the summer kitchen was the wood shed and off the wood shed was entrance to the barn, all attached.

But I wouldn't worry about matching the interior color palette with the exterior one so much. They can be quite different and still work.

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Yes, I would say coordinate with hous color exterior, not I terror (coming from someone with a red barn-looking garage, (but it is detached.)

Your home sounds lovely! 24 ft. is a fairly long breezeway. I think you can play with color on the garage/barn. I'm not usually a red person, but I love red barns. And with a white farmhouse... it would look amazing. I've also seen white farmhouses with attached (via a breezeway or otherwise) barn of sorts done up in weathered wood. That was lovely too.

How about green for the barn? No one has suggested that yet! :-) Or for a red barn, how about red shingles for the house? Lots of possibilities!

Very charming sketch. I hope you post when finished.

I recall a member named Dutty who had a gorgeous white house with a red barn. You might could find her pics in the build thread from maybe August or September 2013.

I guess my confusion on this is how you would do the actual barn. I think the house with attached barn looks great, but it would look odd to me to have house with attached barn + an actual barn. The sketch looks absolutely beautiful, can't wait for y'all to start building.

Dutty's house was amazing! I always loved her pics!

Here's one I snitched when I was doing inspiration pics for ours... I wish I could have pulled this off!

Yep. That's it Lori. I loooove her house.

You have a beautiful exterior planned. Personally I think with such a detailed (more fancy than simple) garage I would prefer to keep the same color as the house. With barn red just be careful because there is a risk of it becoming twee/Disney. Enjoy building and good luck!

Jdez & Lori-Thanks for posting Dutty's picture! I found her drawing and some "in progress" pictures but not the finished product. Her house is gorgeous, a little more contemporary feel than ours I think? It easily handles the contrasting color. I worry about all white being blah but Oaktown might be right that there are enough decorative details in the plan that it would be okay.

Virgil- you are right, so many choices! Hadn't thought of green but Hardie has several muted greens that would blend nicely with my interiors.

amber-sadly there will be no real barn. Compromises of marriage. I got DH to sell his dream house on a lake and move to the country, but the deal is no animals other than my dogs. We had a rooster next door one summer and that ruined my chances. Closest to a barn I will get will be a potting shed down near my vegetable garden!

Well then I have no opposition to the barn garage!! Though I wouldn't be surprised if In five years you accidentally start collecting animals... I mean.. Someone needs to cut the grass. ;)

I would think about varying either the roof shape OR the color, but not both. Maybe mock it up both ways using photocopies of these examples.

Do the barn in red and paint the front door to the house the same red. Love the sketch of your house and barn/garage.

Seeing the pictures I think the red looks really good actually. We aren't anywhere near ready to build but we do have a red barn already on our property, though it is in need of a fresh color. i really like your drawing, I need to look for something like that in a ranch. I know traditional farm houses are 2 levels, but I would like to try to mimic the look in a ranch, or include a nice wrap around porch. I've been away from GW for awhile, but coming back, I definitely look forward to following your project. Not a great picture, but here's part of my barn.

I've never seen a bad looking red barn, not a bad default choice. (With a green roof, of course, assuming you can't do multi-colored slate). I suspect barns are red because iron oxide was the cheapest pigment one could buy back when. Blue or green could be pretty cool. My barn is red (with a green roof).

The idea of a connected barn makes sense, I've just never seen one in our area. It would make it easier to access in the winter....but all our area barns seem to be a ways from the house. Maybe because there were more pigs and cattle than horses?

We are one of the few with horses....and we love them! We don't take vacations, we buy hay (LOL) but it's a trade we would easily make, again. Don't rule out animals too quickly, just don't try roosters. My husband didn't want any either...but horses were okay :)

amber & lavender - I have heard that animals and birds have a way of "appearing" on farms....... (;

divine- i love your barn and fencing and everything! I wish we had that. Our land was rolling hunting property so there is nothing on it except for a rusty scaffolding blind, a couple of regular deer blinds, and tons of empty beer cans!

Back to my color issue......

I am starting to overthink probably, but am realizing that the strong red might also clash with my usual slate of perennials. I typically stick to softer shades of white, pink, blue, purple and yellow without much red at all.

These were our original inspiration photos. You've probably seen them a million times. Love the peaceful feeling I get looking at them, but part of that is all the wonderful green around them!

Clearly you like very beautiful, classic designs. Now I think you need to decide if you're the type to mix classic with a pop of something (red barn) or if you'd rather do classic neutral. I personally always WANT to walk a little I the wild side, but always talk myself out of it and goo the safe route. And 9 times out of ten I'm happy I did. So do you love the red barn look enough for it to be safe for you, or are you afraid you'll regret it? Honestly... You really can't go wrong, you just need top decide which makes your heart sing. ;)

I like the concept, but I think the barn should be kept very simple (like a real barn). In your sketch, it looks like two different houses were attached. I would also keep the 'enclosed breezeway' to a minimum, rather than looking like a wing of the house. Then the red will be fine.

I have to say that I absolutely love the red, and had FULL intentions to paint my doors and garage doors red....that being said... obviously I decided not to. I did it inside with my kitchen cabinets instead. Of which lots of people told me I was crazy. Let me tell you, that is a true statement, but I'm so glad I listened to MY gut.
I also agree with mushcreek 100%, that while I love your sketch... you might find your heart singing a bit more with more simple lines more like Dutty's. It seems to be more like your inspiration photos. :) (lotsa help we are huh??!! LOL)

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and don't even get me started on the animal thing... I also run the funny farm lol :)

You guys are great! Amber-you hit the nail on the head. I usually make the safe choice but end up very happy. I think it's a good exercise to ponder the options though!

I like the idea of simplifying design a bit. We already asked architect to lower porch so we could remove railing. I also wonder about getting rid of the little square windows upstairs on both the house and the garage.

Lori- I love that you followed your gut and went with the red kitchen! I did a blue-grey island in our last house before it was popular and the kitchen gal was almost mean telling me I would regret it. I loved it from day one and I'm thinking she's put in a few more cabinets in that color since then. Love your field of dreams!

For those of you with houses set way off the road, do you have a 2-track, gravel, asphalt, etc. ? We get heavy lake effect snow so we will be snow plowing the drive regularly.

higginszoo... we shall be life long friends :) lol
we are 1600+ feet off the road. We are gravel. no plans to ever asphalt that much...we don't get lake effect snow, but we do get some heavy snows. (Central Indiana) we are fortunate enough to own heavy equipment & drive 4WD trucks. Hubby is very careful when he plows to actually leave a bit of snow on top of that precious (expensive!) gravel. That way it doesn't wind up in the yard/field... we had some pretty good snows this past winter and only a few times a front wheel drive car wouldn't make it all the way. fwiw... ymmv :)

@ Lori we just moved out of Indianapolis, to Centerville. Where are you at? We have 8.5 acres so no 1600 ft off the road, but man I bet that's nice. Funny how even with 8.5 acres the land tells us where we can build. We are closer to the road than I want to be, but with an existing well & septic already there we are hoping to save the expense of relocating them. We will only be 80-100 feet off the road. Still haven't found a plan or a builder. So hard trying to find something that has most of what we want in a size/budget we can afford.

divine, we're 30 min south of Indy! :) I'm trying to think of where Centerville is, I'll have to look at the map. Good luck in your search, I worked non stop on ours for a couple years. I finally did the plans myself, with the help of my dad who's 40+ yrs experienced in construction/drafting. :) I'm a construction brat through & through, if you need someone to bounce things off of, I'm willing to listen! :)

Lori- After hearing about your 1600 foot driveway, DH is feeling more confident about the mere 800-ish feet we have to deal with! Slope up to house will be a challenge so we may try to cement a bit close to house. Clearly more powerful lawn equipment is in our future. I asked for a brush hog for my birthday but with nowhere to store it, that and my planned walking/snowshoe trails are going to have to wait a while.

Divine- for our last house I basically cobbled together what I liked from various house plans then had an inexpensive draftsman put it into a workable construction plan. We had a few little hiccups during the build, but it was a great way to get what we wanted without having to pay an architect.

I love, love your sketch. House, "breezeway" and "barn" garage! Yes, paint the garage red.

Thank Lori- I have been looking at plans for several years myself. I am trying to squeeze 3 bedrooms and flex space into 1800 or so square feet,(over a basement) and then add a 3 season room off the family space so that when we have large family gatherings we can expand a little into there, with an ADA accessible bathroom and wider than standard doorways. Centerville is about 85 miles from Indy. (I'm still commuting in on the weekends).

Hi there! We are JUST starting the process of building a new home on five acres of property, and I've been exhaustingly searching high and low for a house plan or style that is close to what is in my head! Your description and sketch up above has really caught my eye, it's SO pretty! It's the closest thing I've found to what I'm imagining! How is your build going? I would LOVE to see more of what you're doing, if you would be willing!

The red can work, in fact I'm thinking of that myself. But what you want is a soft, weathered-looking red. So stain the barn, don't paint. The traditional color is often called Indian red or Spanish red. It's based on red ocher, or the synthetic equivalent, which is basically iron oxide-- rust.

Alternatively, a dark brownish black, which used to be based on creosote, can look good. Blue can be difficult, since it can be too bright, like a swimming pool. A lot of greys are really blues in natural light, and that's easier to live with.

Hi Jane - Did you ever end up building this incredible house? I would LOVE to see pictures and know more!! Thanks so much!