Hi Nigel,
Is that an infinity pool! I wouldn't mind living there :) I do have a few questions though first so this is going to be a relatively small post (compared with everyone else's first post), and I'll post again when you give me a little more info.
You say your in the production phase, what sort of length render times are you getting? Have you done any optimisation ? What settings are you using (for global illumination for example)? You are probably doing lots of raytracing (is it all necessary), reducing that work will reduce your render times. Do you have access to a farm?
Because your only real animation is the camera, you should be able to bake all of your lighting out into textures. Theoretically... this will dramatically reduce your render times as you will not need to do any lighting/raytracing on the fly (Unfortunately if your intending on using raytraced reflections and have lots of reflective objects that will increase your render times). Doing the bake may take some time, as you have a lot of objects in your scene, but it will be worth it in the savings you will make. If you have not thought of doing this I can explain more in the next post.
Consider only doing two versions (you are giving yourself more work, its better to do less, but do it well, than trying to do too much and not finishing in time), daylight and night time perhaps, unless you want to do a sunset/magic hour version? Were you planning on rendering the whole thing three times? or blending between the versions in comp? That way you would only have to render 10-15 seconds of each, and it would give a nice effect...
I can see a few ways you can cut your camera animation short to improve the flow of movement. Panning the camera one way, and then the other (imagine shaking your head to say 'no') stops the flow, it would look more fluid if you started at '8 seconds' (on your animatic) where the camera pans right to left and then heads forward into the room. Also you could try moving forward and rotating slowly, to get to where you want to be. The door opening is a nice effect, but it feels a little like your teasing the audience! Do you have a reason for opening it?
You have made a good start on the lighting. I have found some reference online which is what I imagine you want to achieve in your final render, but I would also look architectural photography for some ideas. Most CG images you see have some post work done on them so don't be afraid to run your renders through a comp workflow to get those last minute glows and final touches.
Your colour pass looks like it has occlusion multiplying it already, its better to multiply this in comp and take it out of your main render, that way you will have more control. If you look at the reference, the occlusion is very subtle, and you can only see it in areas where little or no bounce is getting there. What you want to see is an overall lighter picture, with the sun really reaching into the room, bouncing and glowing everywhere. To sell this house you want to create a sunny bright atmosphere, at the moment its a bit dark and not so inviting. I have done a little painting and colour correction on your image, to show you what I mean.
Something you said reminded me of a section I read in the Advanced renderman companion. The emphasis of your project is on realistic images. In films, skin tones are lit and colour corrected to make the skin tones look "rosy". This is because people remember skin tones as being warmer and pinker than they really are (researchers who study human response to colour have established this fact). Realistic coloured skin tones tend to give an image a documentary feel.
My advice/conclusion: Play with realism a bit. Make the audience feel the sunlight, not just see it.
Looking forward to your response, lets see if we can get those render times down.
Tessa
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