It a nice design but tough to attach a garage to. In New England this house would have been of the Greek Revival Style - a large improvement in appearance for a modest cost in additional detailing.

I like it overall on the first floor.

The bedrooms don't really allow for good bed placement with the existing door and window placement and the upper hall takes up a lot of real estate. I would try turning the stairs and reconfiguring the second floor.

Frankly, this is not a historically well-researched or particularly good design. It's just an uniformed idea of what a "farmhouse" might be.

Historically, many of these historical houses were colonials and colonial influenced: either 3-bay or 5-bay. That is to say, there would typically be a centered door with a single window to left and right (1+1+1=3 bays), or a centered door with two windows left and right (2+1+2). In each case the bays are historically rather equal in spacing.

There are also more rare examples of 4-bay houses and, even rarer, 2-bay houses.

Of course, one can say one doesn't care about history and understanding of historical precedents, but if that's the case why consider a "farm house" in a modern building scenario.

Point is one can do much better than this example.

Good luck on your project.

Any examples you would like to provide Virgil?

Thanks for the thoughts everyone

I really like the exterior of this one.

Here is a link that might be useful: Farmhouse

This post was edited by jkziel on Tue, Aug 6, 13 at 13:29

That's a gorgeous example jkziel of a contemporary farmhouse - the 2nd link you posted.

I don't know what you're looking for in a house except for your farmhouse-ish link above, but here is an L shape farmhouse you may like with an attached garage. It is a more traditional farmhouse design in the Midwest anyway.

We will probably build a farmhouse (on an actual farm-it's weird since the style is so popular now). I have been researching I think what is called American farmhouse vernacular. My inlaws live in a one on the farm in NE Iowa with the oldest part of the house being almost 200 years old and youngest section around 90 years old. As I understand it the houses (L and T shapes were most common) were built in squares so they could be added onto easily as they had money and additional family. So if you are looking for a more 'authentic' farmhouse feel try looking in that direction.

Also you could Google "L shaped farmhouse plans," and you will get a very good idea of historical homes to at least base a design on if that is what you are after.

Here is a link that might be useful: 2400 sqft farmhouse with attached garage

"...Any examples you would like to provide Virgil?..."

Here are four names to Google and review:

Allison Ramsey
Dungan Nequette
Elliott and Elliott
Russell Versaci

Hopefully they will give you some ideas about vernacular architecture. They all are fine designers and architects. Good luck on your project.

I enthusiastically second the Elliott + Elliott reference. Amazing work. A great example of vernacular architecture, VirgilCarter. They used to have more photos available on their site, but don't seem to now. They have a book of some of their work - 'Houses of Maine' - that is one of my favorite recent architecture books.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sample on their site here:

Thanks! I am excited to check out these recommendations. Feel free to share more!

Here's the home were getting ready to start building.

Disclaimer: this is not a request for a critique; not doing sidelites on front door.

lbewye do you have a floor plan you could post? I would love to see it!