Okay, it sounds as if you just want a house with a front elevation that looks very similar to the Southern Living plan but which would have the interior rearranged so significantly that it would be an entirely new plan. If so, your local architect would only be using the image of the Southern Living plan as "inspiration" for the front elevation and would probably not be infringing copyright - unless he made the front of the house look identical to the SL plan. So maybe you don't really need to purchase a license to the SL plan after all. But it sounds as if your local architect doesn't "get it" even after seeing your inspiration picture. Perhaps you need a different architect. Or is is possible that the room arrangement you want simply won't fit into a farmhouse with a tall narrow front elevation (which is a good part of the charm of the SL plan). If you want a house that is tooooooo big, or you want too many rooms facing either the front or the back views, then your architect probably keeps winding up with something that is broader than it is tall... and therefore cannot possibly be made to look like the elevation you picture. I had a friend who once insisted that she wanted a nice compact basically rectangular one-story "cottage." But then she started describing all the rooms that just had to have a view of the lake on one side of her property and it quickly became obvious to me that there was no possible way to meet her desires. Her vision of the interior was just incompatible with her vision of the exterior. Ultimately she wound up building a long thin boom-a-rang shaped home that was mostly one room deep. It looked nothing at all like the "little cottage" she originally THOUGHT she wanted but every major room in the house has a view of that lake and it is a gorgeous home. If your interior floor plan vision isn't totally incompatible with your exterior inspiration picture, there is probably already a farmhouse design out there somewhere that comes close to meeting your needs and, when finished would look similar to the SL plan. Why don't you post your "program" (how many bedrooms? baths? garage bays? master upstairs or down? laundry upstairs or down? open plan kitchen/great room or not? office? media room? playroom?) here on GW? Maybe someone here will know of a perfect or near perfect plan that could be modified more easily than the SL plan. I know that finding the perfect plan is very difficult and when you hire an architect and he doesn't seem to be able to "get it", it can be extremely frustrating. BTDT, so you have my sincere sympathy.

Quartzite could indeed be more durable. Granite? I'm not a fan of granite in bathrooms. But I really don't much like granite at all. If you're doing a marble basket weave on the floor, I'll come over your house myself and tear out the cultured marble top if you have that installed. ; ) I would encourage you to find a nice piece of marble and go with it. Your personality seems suited to marble. A fine piece of marble? In many ways it's unlike anything else out other. At times people lose sight of the fact that it's a living space. It's not a museum. You can get into habit patterns with lotions and potions that can minimize spills on to the marble. What ever you choose...enjoy! Unless you choose cultured marble. Don't say I didn't warn you! lol

Thanks for all of your thoughts! Mamadadapaige & Desertsteph: My off-to-college kids are my girls, and the lack of laundry floating around here now is a silver lining given their absence! But, my son leaving? Can't go there yet! He may require at least 10 minutes? Desertsteph - I'm 5'2". Glad to hear your shallower sink works for you. A shallower sink might be an answer for me. I don't like leaning over for an under-mount, deeper sink, but I DO like being able to keep dishes out of view when needed. I've never had a farmhouse style sink, but it seems that one would mean less leaning...? Drachiele - You make beautiful sinks, and I'm sure you've done lots of research on both sinks and faucets. Your explanation of how the aerator in a faucet would affect splashing makes a whole lot of sense. We are currently planning a Waterstone Fulton faucet on the main kitchen sink. Is there a number or something online that I look at that determines how effective an aerator is? Somewhat like how a stainless sink would be measured by the 14/16/18/etc gauge? Anybody have any thoughts on how easy/hard it would be to keep a solid granite sink looking good over many years?

anglo, I'm the family tech support department. My kids are grown and out of the house now, but over the years, I've "supported" Macs, iphones, ipods and the ipad. Supporting involves using them when necessary to resolve problems. I was the one who needed to set up network (not just wifi) connections to a Windows system when a kid wanted to transfer school files to the family backup system. It was nearly impossible and much too hard. I debugged update problems, user problems, other hardware and software issues. I'm also in Silicon Valley and have a closer exposure to Apple and things and people in the Apple world than people elsewhere might have. Apple makes excellent hardware and software but I would call it on a par with its competitors on other platforms, not superior to. What they do excel at is creating marketing excitement and buzz, and passing out Kool-Aid to users to make them think they are in a special place when they use Apple products and convince them their products are worth premium prices. I have nothing against Apple products and I admire the company for what it's done to get to where it is. Personally, I think their products are overrated. I really dislike the inflexibility of their stuff compared to what can be done in the PC and Android worlds and I'm happy to not have to use any of it on a regular basis. Apple customers are maybe the happiest customers I can think of (considering other consumer products) and for that, both they and the company get what they want. I'm completely understanding of that. But it's not for me. PS - I have two grand-kids under 5, both of whom use iPads from time to time. The units are in padded, bunker-like protective cases. Both were told - you have to be gentle with these. If you break it by dropping or throwing it, it will be gone and never fixed. There have been no problems.