Great chicken article! :) Thanks so much everyone for taking a look a the pics and the wonderful comments! Yesterday and today I finished up a lot of the outside. I still need to add two fake grid on the windows and clean up a little paint over spray, but for the most part I'm done. I'm sure I'll still fuss out here adding stuff, but I need to get all the inside painting done first. CB .. the rest of the inside of the cottage needs to be redone before it could be used for anything but storage. Oceanna .. the cereal dispensers were off of e-bay. I bought them to go in the kitchen, then decided to use them for dog food and now have swiped them for the chicks and bunny .. they are really, really handy! The window boxes are full of herbs for the most part, I relocted a little of my herb garden up here. Two types of tyme, two oreganos, sweet and boxleaf basil, parsley, rosemary. The reason for the side shots is we have a huge weeping willow and I can't get back far enough to get the whole thing head on. This areas come a long way, it looks a lot better! Just the cottage part .. I used some extra brick pavers and made myself a little step/porch.

Have lake front property with small one and a half story cabin. Have to comply with existing regulations so adding on towards back of lot. "New" year-round retirement home will be long and narrow from front to back. Looking for a design idea for open concept Kitchen/dining/sitting room. The front(facing lake) will be some type of double doors leading onto deck to utilize the deck as extension of sitting room in summer. Kitchen will be at the back. The area in between will be for eating(needs to be expandable),watching TV,visiting,bar service. There will only be two of us living there but have a large extended family so have to make a small space multifuntional. Anyone have any ideas they would like to share? Having everything built so can do what ever we want but we are not wealthy people. have afew ideas but none seem to flow really well.

Sorry to hear about your sister. This must be very stressful for you all. Thanks for posting more photos of your beautiful home. If you have the depth in your room, you could also hide the closet behind the bed as a room divider. Not sure if this is an option for you but would help keep the main bedroom clear albeit tiny. I love your branch btw. If you were really wedded to the branch maybe you could do floor to ceiling track curtains around the closet area. Finally, an offbeat idea that likely doesn't make sense for you but could possibly give you more storage - could the adults take over the entire basement with kids in the 2 bedrooms upstairs?

I love the casual comfort of your space, recognizing all the planning it took to achieve that feel! The wainscotting, soapstone, and hex tile floor make that happen for me, as do all the personal touches like the picture shelves and your lovely barnyard art. I love the thoughtful touches like the med cab placement, the shower' s window, and the foot-rest shelf in the shower - which I may be stealing! And saving the chute, even though that meant re-routing it, is just another example of the care and you took to get it right. I have a possible solution to the hand towel dilemma. Remember how farm kitchens often have those three-fingered towel holders under the sink to hold kitchen towels as they dry? The ones where the three rods come out from a center hinge and can be rotated into any position from all lined up together when not in use to spread far apart so that towels on them can dry? Ginger makes them now in two-rod style in nice finishes for the bath. 16" long. It would really match your farmhouse feel. Where to place it is your problem, you are thinking. I say, put it on the wall just in front of the vanity. You often step away from a sink when done, so the towel will be handy. Rings bunch up the towel and it takes longer to dry. Either this Ginger 0322-16 or any straight towel bar in a 12" or 16" size works, height-wise. Because I am on my Kindle and lost an entire post yesterday by touching somewhere on the screen on accident, I am going to post now, then try to link to the Ginger bar in another post. PS: I love the the violet wall color!