McMansion Hell

[Caballoflaco]

@TGS

I certainly can’t afford a McMansion. But even as a kid I disliked the neighborhoods filled with mini-McMansions that were common in new developments locally. They bored me to death back in a time when being entertained in a car meant getting to stare out the window.

It’s really not just the aesthetic of individual houses that I don’t like, but the hogomeinty of entire developments that look the same. I enjoy the variety of styles in older down here in the south. It seems like people actually put a bit more of their personality into their homes back then. For example, there are a lot of really cool homes in one of the local affluent cities that I look at and think damn that’s a cool house. I’ll still specifically go on motorcycle rides through there during the fall and spring azalea season because it’s just so beautiful. But, the areas I’m speaking about were first developed in the early 1900’s through maybe the 1970’s or 80’s for the majority of the construction. The whole place just has a different feel than the more modern, say 1980’s-Now neighborhoods (or gated communities). Even the new construction there seems to be a step above, design wise, what you see in completely new developments of equally expensive homes.

Now that I’m thinking about it a lot of it has to do with the landscaping as well for me. Back then they built around the landscape more vs razing everything and just sticking a tree or two in the yard. But, in fairness I’m sure a lot of the big old trees I enjoy weren’t that big when a lot of houses I like were built, so the older areas have also had time for nature to grow back into them.

ETA: If I won the lottery and had to buy a pre-built home I would be looking for something that was older; but renovated and modernized vs anything I’ve seen on the McMansion side of the house.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Am I like the only guy who sees that and thinks rainwater management is gonna be a bitch? Gorgeous, though.

A valid question but I know a couple here who have a house roughly like it. One of the owners designed it himself, partly because he wanted to put all the eavestroughs (this word is getting rejected by my phone...rain gutters?) etc on the inside rather than the outside of the house so that he could do the maintenance while standing on a central deck as he ages.

So I think yes, but...there are also advantages, apparently.

[luckyman]

….
, and all the four-story houses I saw in Northern Vietnam that had an unfinished top floor, so as to avoid square footage roofline taxes. It's apparently a thing in Greece, too.

And in Brazil. Or at least it was. Remember listening on the radio, maybe 15 years ago, how many would not finish one side of the house, usually the back, because taxes were charged on finished dwellings.

Sent from my moto z4 using Tapatalk

Yeah, and it is obnoxiously so in Peru, to the point where I kept feeling like I was driving through areas that had taken mortar rounds.

[Cheap Shot]

@TGS

I certainly can’t afford a McMansion. But even as a kid I disliked the neighborhoods filled with mini-McMansions that were common in new developments locally. They bored me to death back in a time when being entertained in a car meant getting to stare out the window.

It’s really not just the aesthetic of individual houses that I don’t like, but the hogomeinty of entire developments that look the same. I enjoy the variety of styles in older down here in the south. It seems like people actually put a bit more of their personality into their homes back then. For example, there are a lot of really cool homes in one of the local affluent cities that I look at and think damn that’s a cool house. I’ll still specifically go on motorcycle rides through there during the fall and spring azalea season because it’s just so beautiful. But, the areas I’m speaking about were first developed in the early 1900’s through maybe the 1970’s or 80’s for the majority of the construction. The whole place just has a different feel than the more modern, say 1980’s-Now neighborhoods (or gated communities). Even the new construction there seems to be a step above, design wise, what you see in completely new developments of equally expensive homes.

Now that I’m thinking about it a lot of it has to do with the landscaping as well for me. Back then they built around the landscape more vs razing everything and just sticking a tree or two in the yard. But, in fairness I’m sure a lot of the big old trees I enjoy weren’t that big when a lot of houses I like were built, so the older areas have also had time for nature to grow back into them.

ETA: If I won the lottery and had to buy a pre-built home I would be looking for something that was older; but renovated and modernized vs anything I’ve seen on the McMansion side of the house.

You bring up a valid question, my thoughts:

Yeah I can afford a McM, but avoid them based on my experiences to date YMMV:

I'm more focused on quality vs quantity.

Curb appeal is important, subjective but it is what it is. I won't sacrifice a quality build for "pretty". I demand that its part of the build.
Are the floors level?
Are the windows quality and square (vertically and horizontally)?
Are the walls ceilings square?
Are the floors level?
Does the garage floor drain to the outside?
Does the basement floors drain to the drains?
Is the sewage, septic ? done correctly?
Is the electrical, plumbing, HVAC best practices?
Any big code violations?
I've really only scratched the surface on metrics for "construction quality". Others could certainly do it better.

It really ties in to the labor shortage skilled trades thread. The market doesnt value craftsmen and hasnt for decades. Better to pay someone with a nail gun in one hand and a power saw in the other than someone that that can think, read a blueprint, use a level and a tape rule.

[Darth_Uno]

For the home itself, even "cheap" new construction is way ahead of ahead of anything built 15-20 years ago, with all the new energy codes we have to go by. Framing and flooring hasn't changed much, but the entire thermal package sure has.

[Lex Luthier]

Hm. Lots of good stuff here.

@TGS

I don't bitch about them much, but I'm not their target market. Nah, couldn't afford one, which doesn't pain me.
I grew up in San Francisco and down the Peninsula in the 70s & 80s, and lived in the greater East Bay in the late 90s. I saw San Jose go from a place with orange and apricot orchards lining the highway to a city with a population of over a million,
and saw vast swaths of development elsewhere in the area.

My gripes with that type of house are fairly specific.
One, the developments I saw were really crammed together and left the houses no space between, nor any real thought to landscaping, site placement, or allowance for stands of existing trees. (my wife and I came to call them "mushroom farms". It still makes us giggle.)
Two, the other major beef is how poorly the aesthetics are managed in examples like the web site. I'm a design pro; this sort of spatial and proportional arrangement is really important to me. I got @rob_s completely when he mentioned this stuff making him want to tear up his architecture degree. Not all of them are that way; I have seen many that grow into their landscaping and site location and become rather timeless.
Others...meh. Just not my thing.

Third, the ones I am most familiar with were built to look expensive, rather than built expensively. I do know the difference- I've been in some really exquisitely designed & built places, both modern and quite old.
Some of them are deceptively simple. Some of them were not terribly expensive for their time & place.

With a lot of these, it's as if the target buyer wants the house equivalent of a plain vanilla car with lots of flashy bling stuck on.

@Darth_Uno - if you could build houses like you described and turn a profit, would you? I'd love to see a good custom homebuilder develop designs for that market. Especially in places that have big temperature change challenges, such as here.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

not you're

*your

Sorry, mental typo

[rob_s]

I'm more focused on quality vs quantity.

I forget which of the home shows it was but maybe 10-15 years ago one of them did a series on a house where they maximized quality durability, longevity, quality details, better materials, etc. I think they may have even showed their "expensive" house next to a cookie-cutter, overly decorated, low-quality, mass-builder house.

I've wanted that kind of house ever since...

[willie]

I know two architects, and both of them draw door knobs. Maybe they should design McMansions.

[Caballoflaco]

I forget which of the home shows it was but maybe 10-15 years ago one of them did a series on a house where they maximized quality durability, longevity, quality details, better materials, etc. I think they may have even showed their "expensive" house next to a cookie-cutter, overly decorated, low-quality, mass-builder house.

I've wanted that kind of house ever since...

I haven’t watched it much in the last few years; but This Old House has always stood out as a show that valued quality in their construction and renovations. I learned a lot from those those guys over the years.