Anyone heard of Micro-Homes(essentally the polar opposite of McMansions)?
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I wonder how scaled down we WILL get as we keep on downsizing our sq footage....
I would imagine we wont ever want to get as small as the 50's ranch homes built on slabs....
the current av US sq footage is 2,300 sq ft..
funny thing is, it WAS 983 sq ft in the 1950's, and we raised families with 4-8 or more kids in those things..
Now we have 1-2, 3 kids max, and over twice as much room..
and we STILL b*tch..lol....
We will NEVER be satisfied!
My grandparents did just that - 4 kids in a late 20s, ~1,100 sq ft 3br mill house. The kids are very close to one another and I bet living in close quarters had something to do with that...it pretty much forces daily interaction and if there's a problem you work it out instead of secluding yourself in an empty part of the house. I don't see any reason why 1-4 people (probably 90% of families nowadays) can't live well in around 1000 sq ft. It's also cheaper to buy/build, less space to heat/cool, less maintenance (not as many windows/doors, less interior/exterior walls to paint/side, less flooring to buy, smaller roof/gutters to replace, cheaper property tax, smaller HVAC to replace, etc. I think some folks will be in for a surprise once the ~2500 sq ft McMansions are 25 years old and require a lot of maintenance and remodeling.
I lived in a 1365 square foot house with four kids ages 7-12. It was like living in hell on earth. When we moved, we moved into a 2800 square foot house where at LEAST the two teenage girls had their own rooms!
Like Jerry Clower said about being stuck up in a tree with a raccoon - "Shoot up here amongst us - ONE of us gots to have some relief!"
Ah reminds me of my house but I think ours was even worse. 740 square feet of space for two adults, four kids. Thankfully my older sister moved out sooner than later.
Hated it. I always shared a bedroom with my sister (we didn't even have a fourth wall so we didn't have a real bedroom, I guess) and then when my brother finally moved out, I moved into the 7 or 9 x 5 room where the bed had been built into the closet and I had a folding door. House full of privacy!
BTW, the reason they call them that is that they look the same per the subdivision, and are close together on small lots like other homes.....they simply look like a "SuperSized" subdivision, hence the McDonalds' moniker...they remind me of rows of giant packs of french fries, circa the 90's supersize craze thankfully long passed at Mcd's...
E Haskell brings up a great point that I never considered....How will these McMansions age?...
I think not well.....they were not built as well and solid as mansions of yore....old mansions had thick plaster walls, deep foundations, metal/iron elements, etc........these new ones are built on the same jerrybuilt 2x4s and plasterboard as the cheap homes of the 70s and 80s(tri levels and such)...
I think they will mostly fall apart due to unaffordable maintainence, depending on area......some will be subdivided into duplexes, some may even be torn down.....
BTW, the reason they call them that is that they look the same per the subdivision, and are close together on small lots like other homes.....they simply look like a "SuperSized" subdivision, hence the McDonalds' moniker...they remind me of rows of giant packs of french fries, circa the 90's supersize craze thankfully long passed at Mcd's...
E Haskell brings up a great point that I never considered....How will these McMansions age?...
I think not well.....they were not built as well and solid as mansions of yore....old mansions had thick plaster walls, deep foundations, metal/iron elements, etc........these new ones are built on the same jerrybuilt 2x4s and plasterboard as the cheap homes of the 70s and 80s(tri levels and such)...
I think they will mostly fall apart due to unaffordable maintainence, depending on area......some will be subdivided into duplexes, some may even be torn down.....
How is that different to the Victorian era mansions of the late 1800's and early 1900's?
If they haven't been carefully maintained, they've been pulled down or cost a fortune to restore, and most of them have ended up being bought up by investors and divided up into multi-family homes. They had their share of foundation issues and structural problems, plaster walls and ceilings collapsing and cracking, knob and tube wiring, asbestos, lead, plumbing...
Don't get me wrong, the craftsmanship and attention to detail inside and out of a well maintained and preserved Victorian era home is beautiful, but it takes a heck of a lot of time and money to have maintained it to this day, and in a state supporting every day living in this day and age.
Any building that is not maintained and cared for will rapidly fall into decline.
Ozgal...no doubt the older mansions, say pre 1940, had to be regutted and such, and many have just been torn down for rebuilds, or for vacant lots in bad areas....surely a small number have been or are considered worthy of the high cost of maintainance...this goes for classic movie theaters, older large downtown stores, and such as well, where the cost simply is too high to consider maintaining/restoring..
That being said, as a real estate agent, I can tell you that the 90's McMansions are already falling apart and need work in many areas, being 20 or so years old and more.......I don't think the firmly built mansions of yore had issues so soon...of course they did, but after 40-50 years, not 20...
Lastly, I don't see the Mcmansions as architecturally significant in the near and far future, unlike the classic old ones...I see few if any being that way, as they are mostly derivative, and use cheaper materials as well....you will not find the lead glass and classic plaster/stone ornamental artifices at all.....
So you can safely say they are all white elephants(McMansions), and are already as much of butts of jokes as disco and polyester pants, as we have moved far away from the bigger is better deal now.....
frankly, they are beyond laughable, not to mention unsustainable....
Microhomes can be charming and all, but if you can stand to live in one... why not just live in a trailer? And I don't mean traditional "mobile homes" but even those "travel trailers" or "fifth wheels" that you see people taking to campgrounds and such. Those can be very affordable ($30-40k) and give you about 300-500 sq ft, slightly more than a so-called "microhome". Plus you have a lot more mobility, which means flexibility in how or where you want to live.
Boxman, my grandparents lived for a year in one, a very large RV, in FLorida in their early 60's....
It was the happiest year of their life....they were frugal, got great monthly rates around 1977 or so, and it worked for them......
I think it all comes down to lot rent and amenities in a warm state,,,with a great lot rent, or owning your own land, I don't think it can be beat, and you can leave anytime.......
I would consider it myself, at least for a few years....along with a nice houseboat off Key West or something..
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