Sears kit bungalow house 1915 (Phoenix: design, housing, castle)

[Burning Madolf]

Originally Posted by MN-Born-n-Raised

Agreed. It's a cheap DIY kit. Here is a house worth saving. https://realestate.savingplaces.org/...frank-furness/ Or maybe this one https://realestate.savingplaces.org/...an-romanesque/ Not some POS DIY kit house.

It's not even the nicest Sears kit.


If you click on the first pick in this list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...oenix,_Arizona) you can see some beautiful places worthy of their status. There are also a number of craptastic buildings that are total head-scratchers.


I believe the owner of the building in questions has a plan: let the giant tree in front and mother nature take care of the issue for him.

[hikernut]

Originally Posted by Colt AZ

I'm not privy to this word, McMansion.

I googled for definition... and it seems to be a pejorative.

Yup, it is. Large square feet, often on a small lot considering the size of the house, and often built to minimum standards with a few cosmetic upgrades to make it look flashy.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by hikernut

Yup, it is. Large square feet, often on a small lot considering the size of the house, and often built to minimum standards with a few cosmetic upgrades to make it look flashy.

Here is how I define it.

"Miller analyzed (hundreds of articles) each instance to try to understand how it was being used, and found that the term McMansion tended to fall into one of four general meanings: a large house, a relatively large house, a home with bad architecture or design, or a symbol for other issues, especially sprawl and consumerism. Most often, McMansion simply referred to a large house. source https://www.citylab.com/equity/2012/...anything/1813/

I think it took on a negative connotation of "cheaply built" after people didn't appreciate the sprawl and consumerism. In other words, "McMansions" often have travertine (real stone), hard wood floors, natural stone counter tops, raised panel hardwood doors etc. But because people wanted to feel good about taking jabs at others, they attached it to striped homes that are larger.

Other than a small subset of homes built over the past 60 years, most use cheap materials. Let's pick on the 50's - 70's. Often they use crappy windows, 2x4 construction, poor insulation, vinyl flooring, ugly ceramic etc. AND they were small shoe boxes with a terrible layout. Hence, I live in a McMansion (10,000 square lot; faux stone, taller white doors, ceramic floors, engineered flooring, factory built cupboards, etc). But I paid $52 a square foot. Now I super charged it. I happen to like my space. YMMV.

[hikernut]

Sure, most houses are built to a pretty low standard... good enough to make the inspectors sign off. McMansion is just a bigger version of this.

[55182]

Originally Posted by MN-Born-n-Raised

Agreed. It's a cheap DIY kit. Here is a house worth saving. https://realestate.savingplaces.org/...frank-furness/ Or maybe this one https://realestate.savingplaces.org/...an-romanesque/ Not some POS DIY kit house.

Just because something is DIY does note make it POS, not at all. Had it not been built properly or to standard it would have fallen apart years ago. The materials were of good quality as testament to being 100 years old. The Sears homes in many cases were bought as a kit because everything was there including plans and and lumber was already cut to size (saving build time as well as labor) . It was less expensive than custom/traditional built at the time (there were no subdivisions like today) , the kits were not cheap but did save approx 25% of cost over traditional . Many buyers paid to have professional tradesmen do the actual build and Sears recommended doing so in their sales literature. And although Sears sold 1000s of kits before they stopped in 1942 (WW2) good examples that are over 100 years old are becoming fewer. Throughout Southern Cal there are a lot of existing Craftmans', relatively speaking, and you would have a hard time identifying a Sears kit over a traditional build, even if right next door to each other. Not many around Az so it should be kept as a example and the National Registry agreed enough to designate the house as such.

[55182]

Originally Posted by Prickly Pear

Not everything is worth saving. Given that it's a house built elsewhere and sent here,

Only the prercut lumber and materials were sent, it came as a kit sold by Sears, but had not been previously built. All new materials.

[Burning Madolf]

Originally Posted by 55182

Not many around Az so it should be kept as a example and the National Registry agreed enough to designate the house as such.

Just because the National Registry adds it, doesn't make it important, it's kind of a chicken/egg thing. Especially since there is no funding or guidance as to the level of upkeep. If you scroll through the pictures I linked to earlier, there are some absolute dumps (some beautiful properties too) designated to have historical significance when they actually have very little.


If it's just the house that needs to be preserved, then the owner should be allowed to move it off to a corner. As it stands now, it doesn't face the street it's listed on, it's not even on the street named after the person it's supposed to commemorate and it's pretty rundown surrounded by a chain link fence (I'm not sure if the chain link fence has historical significance ).


If it's supposed to be preserving history, it's not showing much of a history to preserve.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by 55182

Just because something is DIY does note make it POS, not at all. Had it not been built properly or to standard it would have fallen apart years ago. The materials were of good quality as testament to being 100 years old. The Sears homes in many cases were bought as a kit because everything was there including plans and and lumber was already cut to size (saving build time as well as labor) . It was less expensive than custom/traditional built at the time (there were no subdivisions like today) , the kits were not cheap but did save approx 25% of cost over traditional . Many buyers paid to have professional tradesmen do the actual build and Sears recommended doing so in their sales literature. And although Sears sold 1000s of kits before they stopped in 1942 (WW2) good examples that are over 100 years old are becoming fewer. Throughout Southern Cal there are a lot of existing Craftmans', relatively speaking, and you would have a hard time identifying a Sears kit over a traditional build, even if right next door to each other. Not many around Az so it should be kept as a example and the National Registry agreed enough to designate the house as such.

Fair enough. POS was too strong of a word. The house is nothing special and IMHO, not worthy of calling it a historical architecture.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by hikernut

Sure, most houses are built to a pretty low standard... good enough to make the inspectors sign off. McMansion is just a bigger version of this.

To clarify (per my link above), often "McMansions" have much better materials and construction as compared to the overwhelming majority of 1950-1980 homes built. In other examples, they are just bigger versions. Plus, nearly always (but not 100% of the time), bigger homes spend more money on the interior. Better HVAC, appliances, thicker walls, better __________. There are exceptions (i.e. simply a bigger version). The exceptions are when people buy a bigger box to make sure they buy for expansion with a bigger family. My 2nd home in MN (lived there for 21 years) was such a beast. 4,000 square foot without air, inexpensive ceramic etc. Though the years, we super charged everything. We ended up having a lot of top end jewelry (floors, fire place, pool, landscaping, appliances, etc etc etc. We easily put in more money later into the home than the initial finished shell. Plenty of people do that. Of course, not often in PHX because people are migrant. A guess PHX is a perfect spot for UHaul corporate (they keep those trucks busy in PHX). lol

The bottom line is 90% plus homes from 1950-1980 have far worse caliber materials. Putting it another way, great caliber homes (large or small) are few and far between.

[kell490]

The owner should be able to do what he wants with his own land I could understand if it was a house build by someone who was historically famous.