Ginger, thanks for your interesting questions. Sort of farm--During my growing-up years when my father ran it (I was born in '51), it was basically a hog and grain farm. He grew lots of corn for the pigs and to sell, plus some oats, but started growing soybeans in the sixties as a cash crop as well. We had a few chickens early on, but found it more convenient to buy at the store. (I think even store-bought chicken used to taste better back then.) My mother was a city girl from 200 miles away and hadn't inherited the gardening genes of her father. She did like to grow yellow wax beans and freeze them, which we all enjoyed. During my father's growing up it was much more diversified. At present, having retained about a third of the acreage, 122 acres, our renter/manager/neighbor specializes in grain--soybeans and corn. Organic veggies?--I've gradually gone to organic and permacultural gardening for fun. I really love fruit, and since my husband and I can be on the farm only three months of the year (we teach up in Alaska and fly our Cessna down every year), time is at a premium. Therefore, perennial edibles are my priority, with maybe a few yellow wax beans. So I've planted fruit trees and small-fruit shrubs, asparagus, rhubarb, hardneck garlic (not really perennial, of course), garlic chives, and (my namesake) Egyptian onions, plus many other kinds of herbs. All of these are just jumbled together for a permacultureal type of system, though I do plant them in such a way as to enhance the ability to mow around them. In the east garden, for instance, I planted over the years three rows of fruit trees, plus another row of currants, rhubarb, and grapes. In between the trees, I planted within the rows all kinds of herbaceaous plants, for organic companion reasons, but also so that I could just run the mower all the way up and down without having to go around each individual tree. (I initially scoffed at the by-word "easy to mow around," but soon incorporated it into my criteria of good gardening once I actually started mowing.) Rainbow garden-- Blue: blue flax Darker blue: Veronica austriaca 'Crater Lake Blue' Annual blue salvia that either survive or reseed every year, c.r.n. (can't remember name)--Victoria? Purple: annual reseeding larkpur, Consolida ambigua Veronica spicata 'Blue Peter' Veronica 'Sunny Border Blue' Salvia X Superba 'Blue Hill' Salvia 'Superba Blue Queen' Red: Ground cover rose 'Red Ribbons' (Jackson & Perkins) Dianthus, 'Flashing Light' and 'Brilliant' Orange: Asclepias tuberosa Gaillardia, 'Goblin' and a bigger c.r.n. Gold: Coreopsis, tall c.r.n. Rudbeckia fulgida 'Goldsturm' Yellow: Achillea filipendula Coreopsis 'Zagreb' Green: Juniper horizontalis 'Plumosa Youngstown' Euphorbia cyparissias (am phasing out as juniper grows) Historical restoration--As I view pictures that go all the way back to 1900, I see many changes, including the location of fences, the coming and going of huge trees, and in the ground itself as I describe before with the double terracing. And yet there are still a couple of barns and a corn crib that endure. Times change and new personalities come in. My blood link to the past allows me to both have some knowledge of the past, as well as the capability of gathing more knowledge from pictures, written material, and friends and neighbors whose relationships with the family go back for generations. I cherish this, and often repeat plantings to mimic the past. Yet I can't put it all back and I don't feel the need. As long as I have the family blood, the farm is still evolving as the family farm. I try to do it justice, and though I enjoy it tremendously myself, I'm really only borrowing it from the next generation, whether it goes to my nieces (we're child-free) or whether it changes over to a whole new set of genes. Please check out the gallery again as I will soon have some more pictures in it. Egyptianonion

Our friends had a great KD who took their kitchen from blah to absolutely beautiful and kept their stained cabinets on the perimeter. Their perimeter cabinets also have the cathedral arch and you don't even notice that now. Their L-shaped layout is exactly like yours except that their frig is to the right of their range and they had a kitchen desk where your frig wall is. They kept their hardwood floor. Here's a few things that their KD did. Changed out the double stainless sink for a white short-apron Kohler Whitehaven / Added an ORB touch faucet / Added white subway tile backsplash/ Removed the stained island, enlarged it substantially with painted gray cabinets and added a Sharp MW drawer and trash in the island / Added large dark lantern pendants over the island /Removed laminate countertops and added marble look quartz / They had an electric stove with the MW above and changed it to a stainless gas range with a stainless slant hood /Added stainless frig/ Kitchen desk was converted to a coffee and beverage bar / Removed panels in the upper cabinets that had been above the desk to lighted glass mullions / Removed desk and added beverage and wine cooler. I see that you also have additional wall space on your sink wall as they did. The KD had a cabinet maker match the stain and added an extra base cabinet there. Their trash had resided there previously. My neighbor also had a similar situation with 30" wall cabinets. Her KD added stacked cabinets above to the ceiling. Huge beautiful change.

wow- Sophie. Thank you for that information. I will try to avoid using the term 'farmhouse' if it offends folks but I think you could make a similar argument for almost every post on houzz so it seems to me a bit irrelevant for this type of public forum. I have designers- several of them- with great reputations in their respective fields. Unfortunately, since everyone is so busy, if you want attention to details, I have found it is essential to review all drawings myself (civil, structural, architect, and even the geotech and survey) and look for issues. I have found an overabundance of them- some very serious- that I have personally corrected probably saving about $65,000 at this point with no change in the house design. For this particular design issue (ceiling height), I was not presented with the option of exploring different ceiling heights or given a preference for whether or not I like large crown molding etc. The 10' ceiling was plunked down by an architect on the drawings and now it is near impossible to change as we have our permits and in our city- changes are not only expensive but would mean a return to the planning department and public review. My research and questions and legwork are definitely making my project much better than leaving everything up to designers - nobody cares about 'your' project as much as you do.

Makes sense I would lean towards a country french door, the house is in Louisana on 12 acres of land over looking 200 yr live oaks. This is why I said that the decorating or style part is something you want to think about now because as you can see it affects many of the building choices, from doors to hardware to lighting fixtures etc. But it's also important to take into account the house's location/setting, as well as the design of the house itself. What do the elevations of your house look like? One can, of course, plop a "modern farmhouse" decorating style into a Creole cottage or an American four square or a brick colonial, but the result is more effective when the interior and exterior work together harmoniously. The alternative to this is, as echoed in the Maria Killam article, to keep the bones of the house timeless and classic, and then decorate around that in whatever style one currently favors.