McMansions

[Greatday]

Originally Posted by SWB

Many of the McMansions around here have OODLES of empty space, and the waste is just sickening. I hate walking into a home and seeing a 20' x 20' family room with vaulted ceilings that is only furnished with a couch, loveseat, chair, coffee table, and a painting or two with 300 of that 400 square feet just being home to beige carpeting and beige walls. Then again, I suppose that's the "airy" and "open" feeling that is currently driving the McMansion boom. I hope the owners enjoy paying to heat and cool that extra 300 square feet of wasted space in that room alone just to be able to say "My house is bigger."

Having openess if much preferable to most. We have a room such as you describe - and it has a 20ft high ceiling. Gives a very dramatic feeling.

But, we can do without the carpeting! Adds to the heating and cooling costs. We prefer natural stone -

[kshe95girl]

Originally Posted by Greatday

Having openess if much preferable to most. We have a room such as you describe - and it has a 20ft high ceiling. Gives a very dramatic feeling.

But, we can do without the carpeting! Adds to the heating and cooling costs. We prefer natural stone -

In a room with that much volume, I really like to use the dual paddle fans on downrods. Very dramatic and unusual, and saves $$$, my favorite thing of all!

[KristyLiz]

Originally Posted by SWB

Many of the McMansions around here have OODLES of empty space, and the waste is just sickening. I hate walking into a home and seeing a 20' x 20' family room with vaulted ceilings that is only furnished with a couch, loveseat, chair, coffee table, and a painting or two with 300 of that 400 square feet just being home to beige carpeting and beige walls. Then again, I suppose that's the "airy" and "open" feeling that is currently driving the McMansion boom. I hope the owners enjoy paying to heat and cool that extra 300 square feet of wasted space in that room alone just to be able to say "My house is bigger."

I have a two-story family room and while I will agree that it's a heat suck, we picked this floorplan because we like the openness, NOT so we could say our house is bigger.

We have three young boys who are only getting bigger, so buying a 3300 sq ft house was a necessity for us. Yea, yea, people 50 year ago lived in much less, but I bet if they were given the choice back then, they too would have picked the McMansion.

[bfreder576748]

Originally Posted by sundaze

I saw this mentioned in another thread. What point would you consider the dividing line between a McMansion and a regular home? Does the style or location of the house have anything to do with McMansion-ness?

To me a McMansion is a pile of brick and mortar that a family buys to impress or keep up with others. It is a house with more rooms than what you need or will ever use. Many times you see these homes with mom and dad and 1 or 2 children and they never spend time together and they are in their own "space" away from eachother. All the homes look the same with a min. of 3 garages filled with the newest gas sucking Benz, Escalade or Hummer and then 2-3 years down the road it is all up for sale because the owner is over extended.