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I grew up in McMansion land. They are pretty awful. Also cheaply built. Used to sell windows in my younger days and when I hit a development with McMansions, I saw dollar signs. Wasn't uncommon to find 5 year old houses with cheap construction grade windows with seal failure and owners desperate to replace them. Talking to homeowners, they rarely had positive things to say about their houses and quality of construction, lol. Also had a couple people walk me around their fairly brand new house and the issues they were having already. I'd never move into one of these.
Simply making that video seems like a huge waste of time to me. Who cares what someone else likes? Seems like the author is just looking for something to complain about. The caption says that she is an "architecture critic" - is that even a thing?
Simply making that video seems like a huge waste of time to me. Who cares what someone else likes? Seems like the author is just looking for something to complain about. The caption says that she is an "architecture critic" - is that even a thing?
yes just like theater critic, music critic, fashion critic, food critic, movie critic. you get the idea.
I think most people want their money buying something as fancy as possible. Something that tells their friends and family that they’ve arrived. These homes never really stuck out as anything negative to me until I started reading what the architectural “snobs” online had to say lol.
Granted, some of what the snobs say has me looking a little more critically at these homes. I often see something like a 3500-4000 sq ft home for 3 or 4 people and very high roofs with ceilings that are 25 feet high (is that really efficient or easy to paint?). Sometimes they are all together in neighborhoods with what seems like 15 feet between them. Nothing wrong with homes close together on postage stamp lots, but lots like that seem more fitting for smaller, basic, working class homes without all the added “flare”. What’s worse is when the entire neighborhood looks like the same 3-4 designs with just different bits tacked on to individualize them...again, something that may look ok with modest 1500 sq ft homes, but not “fancy” 3500-4000 sq ft homes. When I go toward town in my city, there are huge old homes built between 1900-1950s or so but they all look kinda elegant and like they were crafted individually...maybe even years or decades apart.
I guess the biggest thing I find odd is when someone buys a plot of land in a neighborhood full of smaller 20s-60s homes and builds a huge McMansion. It just looks odd and sticks out like a sore thumb. The roof being high enough to accommodate vaulted ceilings just towers over the single story homes built with 7-9 foot ceilings. Why not build something that blends in and in 10 years looks like it may have always been there? For example:
I don't see anything wrong with some of the things she objects to. Turrets and columns and mis-matched windows - - so what, if the buyer likes the look?
What I don't like about them is that (for me) they are just too, too huge. Personally, I prefer a smaller home regardless of price. I like having everything close by. This is just personal preference.
Huge houses generally cost more to buy and maintain than little houses. From what I understand, and observe locally, often huge houses can be more costly than their owners can afford. Becoming house poor is one of the worst decisions I can think of. So I think that is the biggest potential problem a McMansion might pose for some, though not all, buyers.
Also if she is right about the quality not being good, then that is a negative IMO. I have no idea.
I think she is missing a key point of McMansions and that is lack of privacy.
I was thinking the same thing. I see subdivisions all the time with 3,000 sqft houses that are only 10' apart. Those are nothing but huge freestanding apartments as far as I'm concerned. I'll keep my smaller house on 6 acres. As the old saying goes, "they're not making anymore land".
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