Around these parts a proper McMansion is a jumped up tract home that
sits on a half to three quarter acre lot, sells for between $800,000
and two million dollars, weighs in at about four thousand to six
thousand square feet, and looks exactly like the other fifty to two
hundred houses in its development.

They are not built, so much as excreted - as though a great angry
animal has walked across the countryside, eating up land, labor and
materials - and ****ting out houses - one turd looking more or less
the same as all the others.

This part of Pennsyltucky is the center of the universe for Two Story
Center Hall Colonials. I can walk into just about any one of these,
built during the last twenty five years and know that the living room
is on the left, the dining room is on the right, the Great
Room/Kitchen is down the hall to the back.

It's like Levittown - without the panache of the three digit mortgage
payment.

There is invariably a Master Bedroom Suite, with the Master Bath
attached. There is, without exception, a Library/Media Room - as
though the two could cohabitate without giving birth to an oxymoron.

These are stick framed structures, two by sixes mostly, in a nod to
the intemperateness of this portion of the temperate zone.

They are sealed up tighter than a gnat's ass and air conditioned and
central heated to within an inch of their lives.

The boxes are thrown up within a single season of a year. Being
enclosed so quickly, the wet framing lumber that the developers favor
is encapsulated in layers of sheetrock, sheathing and veneer stucco,
veneer brick and veneer stone - before the moisture has properly left
the sticks.

So a number of these well off people have breathing problems - and
wonder why.

In the regard of exterior detail, they are festooned with false
replicants of an earlier and more worthy age of architecture - as a
young child will drape themselves in the finery of their elders -
thinking themselves beautiful and sophisticated.

Their roof lines are complex and dramatic, and covered with
Architectural Composite Shingles, made to be a simulacrum of the
baronial slate that was worn by their betters - but which is truly a
tarted up version of the same chapeau borne honestly by the working
class homes in the next zipcode.

They are not for all time but for an age - an age ruled by mediocrity,
of design and spirit.

"Little Boxes
Little Boxes
And all filled with ticky tacky..."




Regards,
Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

"...and the blue ones and the pink ones and the green ones and the yellow
ones..."

Got me a BIL who just moved into one of 'em, just the same except his has a
waterfall. And it's on 10 acres of farm field brought low.

Bob, who's in love for perpetuity with Malvina Reynolds

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
Around these parts a proper McMansion is a jumped up tract home that
sits on a half to three quarter acre lot, sells for between $800,000
and two million dollars, weighs in at about four thousand to six
thousand square feet, and looks exactly like the other fifty to two
hundred houses in its development.

They are not built, so much as excreted - as though a great angry
animal has walked across the countryside, eating up land, labor and
materials - and ****ting out houses - one turd looking more or less
the same as all the others.

This part of Pennsyltucky is the center of the universe for Two Story
Center Hall Colonials. I can walk into just about any one of these,
built during the last twenty five years and know that the living room
is on the left, the dining room is on the right, the Great
Room/Kitchen is down the hall to the back.

It's like Levittown - without the panache of the three digit mortgage
payment.

There is invariably a Master Bedroom Suite, with the Master Bath
attached. There is, without exception, a Library/Media Room - as
though the two could cohabitate without giving birth to an oxymoron.

These are stick framed structures, two by sixes mostly, in a nod to
the intemperateness of this portion of the temperate zone.

They are sealed up tighter than a gnat's ass and air conditioned and
central heated to within an inch of their lives.

The boxes are thrown up within a single season of a year. Being
enclosed so quickly, the wet framing lumber that the developers favor
is encapsulated in layers of sheetrock, sheathing and veneer stucco,
veneer brick and veneer stone - before the moisture has properly left
the sticks.

So a number of these well off people have breathing problems - and
wonder why.

In the regard of exterior detail, they are festooned with false
replicants of an earlier and more worthy age of architecture - as a
young child will drape themselves in the finery of their elders -
thinking themselves beautiful and sophisticated.

Their roof lines are complex and dramatic, and covered with
Architectural Composite Shingles, made to be a simulacrum of the
baronial slate that was worn by their betters - but which is truly a
tarted up version of the same chapeau borne honestly by the working
class homes in the next zipcode.

They are not for all time but for an age - an age ruled by mediocrity,
of design and spirit.

"Little Boxes
Little Boxes
And all filled with ticky tacky..."




Regards,
Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

Tom Watson wrote:

Around these parts a proper McMansion is a jumped up tract home that
sits on a half to three quarter acre lot, sells for between $800,000
and two million dollars, weighs in at about four thousand to six
thousand square feet, and looks exactly like the other fifty to two
hundred houses in its development.
[snip of an indictment of architectural nonchalance]

I used to live in a community where castles are de rigeur. These are
McMansions built nearly to the property line on small lots with a faux
stone facade. They also feature a mixture of architectural tweaks such
as a Moorish dome overlooking a Widow's Walk. Colors, besides the stone
gray, include pastel yellows, pinks, and blues. The insides, however,
feature genuine hardwood floors, stairways, and other built-ins. Very
well done.

One of my favorites, I called the Spike Jones house. The late lamented
Mr. Jones, would quite often sport a suit with a large (~8 inch) check
pattern. The faux stone was a ~24 inch check pattern. Takes your
breath away.
mahalo,
jo4hn

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 00:28:49 GMT, "Bob Schmall"
wrote:

"...and the blue ones and the pink ones and the green ones and the yellow
ones..."

Bob, who's in love for perpetuity with Malvina Reynolds


Aye, but like brother Pachelbel, she will be known for eternity for a
single piece.

(Pachelbel's Canon, often referred to as, "Pachelbel's Greatest Hit".)


(good pieces, though.)



Regards,
Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

Around here the McMansions are concrete block and stucco, 8 to 10 feet from
block to block between houses. 4000 sq/ft house on an 8000 square foot lot
kinda thing.
They all have the same "house of Zorro" architecture. Babyspit beige, lots of
short walls, gables and fake tile roof.
They call them single family homes but they are actually detached condos with
so many deed restrictions that your yard is really a "common element",
maintained and controlled by the community association. Don't even think about
planting an unauthorized shrub, painting your house an unauthorized color or
parking in the driveway. All this in a flood plain, priced from the $500s to
$2m.

TW, you've got a way with words, I must say...

Tom Dacon

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
Around these parts a proper McMansion is a jumped up tract home that
sits on a half to three quarter acre lot, sells for between $800,000
and two million dollars, weighs in at about four thousand to six
thousand square feet, and looks exactly like the other fifty to two
hundred houses in its development.

They are not built, so much as excreted - as though a great angry
animal has walked across the countryside, eating up land, labor and
materials - and ****ting out houses - one turd looking more or less
the same as all the others.

This part of Pennsyltucky is the center of the universe for Two Story
Center Hall Colonials. I can walk into just about any one of these,
built during the last twenty five years and know that the living room
is on the left, the dining room is on the right, the Great
Room/Kitchen is down the hall to the back.

It's like Levittown - without the panache of the three digit mortgage
payment.

There is invariably a Master Bedroom Suite, with the Master Bath
attached. There is, without exception, a Library/Media Room - as
though the two could cohabitate without giving birth to an oxymoron.

These are stick framed structures, two by sixes mostly, in a nod to
the intemperateness of this portion of the temperate zone.

They are sealed up tighter than a gnat's ass and air conditioned and
central heated to within an inch of their lives.

The boxes are thrown up within a single season of a year. Being
enclosed so quickly, the wet framing lumber that the developers favor
is encapsulated in layers of sheetrock, sheathing and veneer stucco,
veneer brick and veneer stone - before the moisture has properly left
the sticks.

So a number of these well off people have breathing problems - and
wonder why.

In the regard of exterior detail, they are festooned with false
replicants of an earlier and more worthy age of architecture - as a
young child will drape themselves in the finery of their elders -
thinking themselves beautiful and sophisticated.

Their roof lines are complex and dramatic, and covered with
Architectural Composite Shingles, made to be a simulacrum of the
baronial slate that was worn by their betters - but which is truly a
tarted up version of the same chapeau borne honestly by the working
class homes in the next zipcode.

They are not for all time but for an age - an age ruled by mediocrity,
of design and spirit.

"Little Boxes
Little Boxes
And all filled with ticky tacky..."




Regards,
Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

Tom Watson:

They are not built, so much as excreted - as though a great angry
animal has walked across the countryside, eating up land, labor and
materials - and ****ting out houses - one turd looking more or less
the same as all the others.

What you are saying is that the building trend that started after WWII is
continuing, only the houses are bigger.
--
Mac Cool

In article , Tom Watson wrote:

They are not built, so much as excreted - as though a great angry
animal has walked across the countryside, eating up land, labor and
materials - and ****ting out houses - one turd looking more or less
the same as all the others.

How true, how true.

Ever notice that the garage is the largest and most prominent feature on most
of these homes? SWMBO and I call them "a garage with an attached house".

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

Get a copy of my NEW AND IMPROVED TrollFilter for NewsProxy/Nfilter
by sending email to autoresponder at filterinfo-at-milmac-dot-com
You must use your REAL email address to get a response.

Tom Dacon said:

TW, you've got a way with words, I must say...

Hear, Hear!
LMAO, but embarrassed because I reluctantly resemble that remark...
(SWMBO bought it... and I've had to rebuild almost every mediocre,
turd-like thing in it since.)


Greg G.

"Tom Watson" writes:

Around these parts a proper McMansion is a jumped up tract home that
sits on a half to three quarter acre lot, sells for between $800,000
and two million dollars, weighs in at about four thousand to six
thousand square feet, and looks exactly like the other fifty to two
hundred houses in its development.
snip

About the best you can give this things is that they don't even qualify as
poorly built boats.

Hell, they don't even have a place for an anchor.

As Pete Seager sang, "Ticky tacky, etc............"

Lew

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 03:47:17 GMT, (Doug Miller)
scribbled:

In article , Tom Watson wrote:

They are not built, so much as excreted - as though a great angry
animal has walked across the countryside, eating up land, labor and
materials - and ****ting out houses - one turd looking more or less
the same as all the others.

How true, how true.

Ever notice that the garage is the largest and most prominent feature on most
of these homes? SWMBO and I call them "a garage with an attached house".

Huh? I don't see the problem with a large prominent shop. I'm
surprised you said that, coming from a wrecker. How else can you get a
decent sized shop? Otherwise, you'd have to build a separate shop so
you can fix up all the crap.

Luigi
Who lives in a 1,300 sq.ft. house (OK, 2,600 if you count the
basement) built by apprentices under the stern eye of a
quality-obsessed instructor in the late 1970s, and who has enough room
for himself, the LOHL, a basement suite, two professional home
offices, a wine cellar and a 14X28 shop (not included in the
aforementioned 1,600 sq.ft.).

Replace "nonet" with "yukonomics" for real email address

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
Around these parts a proper McMansion is a jumped up tract home that
sits on a half to three quarter acre lot, sells for between $800,000
and two million dollars, weighs in at about four thousand to six
thousand square feet, and looks exactly like the other fifty to two
hundred houses in its development.
.........
Regards,
Tom.
SWMBO and I went to a "Parade of Homes" event here in Honolulu this past
weekend... we saw 1100sqft townhouses with 40x15 ft yards that were being
offered for $325K. They were in the dry/hot area of Oahu that is often
compared to a desert, and in the flight path of the Honolulu airport (shared
runways with Hickam AFB).
The reasonable sized houses a few blocks away were $750K for 2700sqft with
no options. Everything in the house but the walls and stairs were labled as
optional or upgraded. They were proud to add that the homes came WITH
airconditioning.
By the way, there were no homes available but they welcomed us to join the
lottery that would be held in December.
Looking forward to retiring from paradise to someplace with a reasonable
cost of living...

Jack

"Doug Miller" wrote in message
. com...


Ever notice that the garage is the largest and most prominent feature on
most
of these homes? SWMBO and I call them "a garage with an attached house".

That's one of a coupl'a things I hate about ours. A three car garage
dominates the elevation. The front door is almost an afterthought off to the
side.

I grew up with garages in the back.
I guess most folks think it a security hazard, but I sure wish mine was
around back.

"patrick conroy" wrote in message
That's one of a coupl'a things I hate about ours. A three car garage
dominates the elevation. The front door is almost an afterthought off to
the side.

I grew up with garages in the back.
I guess most folks think it a security hazard, but I sure wish mine was
around back.

Come$ down to $$$ in many cases. Putting the garage in back or even on the
side requires more paving, maybe even more land for the driveway. Three
and four care homes are fairly common these days also. I'm glad I left the
city many years ago because parking is a nightmare in many areas.

Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
Around these parts a proper McMansion is a jumped up tract home that
sits on a half to three quarter acre lot, sells for between $800,000
and two million dollars, weighs in at about four thousand to six
thousand square feet, and looks exactly like the other fifty to two
hundred houses in its development.

(snip)


Here on Staten Island that description fits except they are built on 40 X
100' plots


In the regard of exterior detail, they are festooned with false
replicants of an earlier and more worthy age of architecture

Here they only do that to the front facade. The sides and back are square
with vinyl siding.

Florida perchance?

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 06:00:34 GMT, "Jack"
wrote:

Looking forward to retiring from paradise to someplace with a reasonable
cost of living...

"Tom Watson" wrote in message

Aye, but like brother Pachelbel, she will be known for eternity for a
single piece.

(Pachelbel's Canon, often referred to as, "Pachelbel's Greatest Hit".)


(good pieces, though.)

Specifically in the key of D ... worn out and overplayed, but still a
brilliant piece of music. I once participated in an attempt to break the
Guinness World record for playing it non-stop .. put most of us to sleep.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/04/04

"Tom Watson" wrote in message
Around these parts a proper McMansion is a jumped up tract home that
sits on a half to three quarter acre lot, sells for between $800,000
and two million dollars, weighs in at about four thousand to six
thousand square feet, and looks exactly like the other fifty to two
hundred houses in its development.

Here in Houston it is a 5000s/f rectangular brick box, with some Greek
Revival geegaws tacked on, on a 5500s/f lot.

AAKA, "Greed Revival".

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/04/04

"Bob Schmall" wrote in message ...
"...and the blue ones and the pink ones and the green ones and the yellow
ones..."

Got me a BIL who just moved into one of 'em, just the same except his has a
waterfall. And it's on 10 acres of farm field brought low.

Too big to mow and too small to plow.

Bob, who's in love for perpetuity with Malvina Reynolds

DIALECTIC by Malvina Reynolds

It's hard to believe that people live in such palaces,
With fine carved wood and carpets like clouds on the floor,
And ride around in gold-plated automobiles
With a flunky to drive and a flunky to open the door.
It's hard to believe, but people do live that way.
And that's why thousands live on the riverbank
And have hardly enough to eat from day to day.

It's hard to believe that thousands live in such shanties,
Or are jammed into slums where we do not usually go,
And they don't know how they'll make it to the next payday,
If they have a payday, that is, when things get slow.
It's hard to believe, but people do live that way,
And that's why a few live in real palaces,
And cannot spend money as fast as they get it,
No matter how hard they try,
Or how many houses and automobiles they buy.


Dick Durbin

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message

"patrick conroy" wrote in message
That's one of a coupl'a things I hate about ours. A three car garage
dominates the elevation. The front door is almost an afterthought off to
the side.

I grew up with garages in the back.
I guess most folks think it a security hazard, but I sure wish mine was
around back.

Come$ down to $$$ in many cases.

Trust me, that's ALL it comes down to.

Putting the garage in back or even on the
side requires more paving, maybe even more land for the driveway. Three
and four care homes are fairly common these days also. I'm glad I left the
city many years ago because parking is a nightmare in many areas.

You can build a much bigger POS with a front loading garage on a smaller lot
.... also it's often difficult to get a SUV into a rear garage on the 50' X
100' lots that are so prevalent these days and still get 3000sf of house,
which is about as small as the market will bear in some areas.

Not to mention that porches that you can actually sit on and enjoy are some
of the most expensive real estate on the market.

All the above notwithstanding, I am seeing a trend toward smaller houses in
the last couple of years as the population gets older. AAMOF, I am building
one now in one of the most desirable, upscale areas of Houston that is only
2980sf, with porches and balconies front and back, and a garage in the back.
Whether we can sell it at the going rate for other houses in the area
remains to be seen.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/04/04

Well, I hear your lament Tom, but you forget that this only represents
the demand of our housing market economy, and a national economy being
driven, in no small part, by housing and home improvement consumer
spending. No doubt, many local craftsmen make their living in your
area from this development. Now, perhaps some of your design animus
may be driven by the "architectual pollution" of your heretofor
semi-rural environs (e.g., in another context illustrated by the "last
man in theory" or perhaps the NIMBY point of view, neither of which I
suggest you subscribe to), and thus offends your sense of taste and
space, but as they said in Rome (or in pig latin) "de gustibus non est
disputandum" (for the monolingual, "there's no accounting for taste").

America, if nothing else, for better or worse historically has
celebrated personal property and the freedom to express one's view of
architecture on one's real property. For the life of me, I still
can't reconcile my own taste with those who slavishly recreate
victorian paint schemes of purple, pink, blue and other unknown
pastels on their rehabilated "historic" fix-er-uppers, and declare the
result tasteful and historically accurate. It may be historically
accurate, but if there were newsgroups in Queen Victoria's times,
there would have been, no doubt, postings which groaned about the lack
of taste of those victorian designers now widely celebrated (in
certain quarters) for their decorative ingenuity and sometimes
outright grotesque mixing of various revivals of styles.

I suggest the salve for your slightly offended psyche may indeed be
the green poultice of economic opportunity. I note with interest your
website, and the obvious quality of your craftsmanship (and your need
to jetison that old Stanley 55!) which cumulatively would bring some
much needed elegance and character to those wet-stick framed eyesores
about which you wax eloquently. I suggest that the number and
tract-like quality of these new homes represent nothing but a broad
opportunity for you to show these folks (perhaps unfairly
characterized by others - but not by you, as having more money than
sense, as they have a right to spend their money as they wish and if
they want to live in their real estate investment to fund their
retirement, who's to say they're wrong)the error of their plebian
tastelessness by redoubling your efforts at marketing and offering to
them the ability to customize their interiors in a manner befitting
the taste represented by the quality of your work.

It also strikes me that while the Levittowns of old were indeed cookie
cutter mediocrity in design and concept, take a drive through any
tract development say, maybe, 25 years later, and you will see the
transformation that renovation, addition and personalization by a
succession of owners has wrought. This, too, will happen to the
McMansions, because as much as things change, that's as much as they
remain the same.

Mutt

Tom Watson wrote in message . ..
Around these parts a proper McMansion is a jumped up tract home that
sits on a half to three quarter acre lot, sells for between $800,000
and two million dollars, weighs in at about four thousand to six
thousand square feet, and looks exactly like the other fifty to two
hundred houses in its development.

They are not built, so much as excreted - as though a great angry
animal has walked across the countryside, eating up land, labor and
materials - and ****ting out houses - one turd looking more or less
the same as all the others.

This part of Pennsyltucky is the center of the universe for Two Story
Center Hall Colonials. I can walk into just about any one of these,
built during the last twenty five years and know that the living room
is on the left, the dining room is on the right, the Great
Room/Kitchen is down the hall to the back.

It's like Levittown - without the panache of the three digit mortgage
payment.

There is invariably a Master Bedroom Suite, with the Master Bath
attached. There is, without exception, a Library/Media Room - as
though the two could cohabitate without giving birth to an oxymoron.

These are stick framed structures, two by sixes mostly, in a nod to
the intemperateness of this portion of the temperate zone.

They are sealed up tighter than a gnat's ass and air conditioned and
central heated to within an inch of their lives.

The boxes are thrown up within a single season of a year. Being
enclosed so quickly, the wet framing lumber that the developers favor
is encapsulated in layers of sheetrock, sheathing and veneer stucco,
veneer brick and veneer stone - before the moisture has properly left
the sticks.

So a number of these well off people have breathing problems - and
wonder why.

In the regard of exterior detail, they are festooned with false
replicants of an earlier and more worthy age of architecture - as a
young child will drape themselves in the finery of their elders -
thinking themselves beautiful and sophisticated.

Their roof lines are complex and dramatic, and covered with
Architectural Composite Shingles, made to be a simulacrum of the
baronial slate that was worn by their betters - but which is truly a
tarted up version of the same chapeau borne honestly by the working
class homes in the next zipcode.

They are not for all time but for an age - an age ruled by mediocrity,
of design and spirit.

"Little Boxes
Little Boxes
And all filled with ticky tacky..."




Regards,
Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:39:31 -0500, "Swingman" wrote:


All the above notwithstanding, I am seeing a trend toward smaller houses in
the last couple of years as the population gets older. AAMOF, I am building
one now in one of the most desirable, upscale areas of Houston that is only
2980sf, with porches and balconies front and back, and a garage in the back.


When the kidz are gone - the first thing I'm tearing down is... the
lawn!

"Take paradise and put up a parking lot." makes a helluva lota sense
to me now.

On 05 Oct 2004 12:27:36 GMT, Scott Cramer
wrote:




If you need evidence that money and taste are rarely found together, the
kind of God-awful luxury homes you describe proves the case beyond doubt.

Yeah - we went to a local parade of homes. One house was beautifully
architected. Just a wonderment of design. Their accolades and awards
seem to support my uneducated opinion.

Next to it was a hideous, hideous waste of raw materials. Someone
attempted to build an "Italian Villa" on a budget with horrific taste.
What I found so painfully embarassing was that the homeowners had put
up family portraits in every room so you'd know who was responsible.

Thankfully the homeowners were not there during my tour - the comments
from everyone walking were very critical.

Most constructive comment I heard was from a 70+ year old lady as she
walked out, her ?daughter? asked "Mom, what did you think?"

She said, "Burn it -- for the insurance."

Mac Cool wrote:

Tom Watson:


They are not built, so much as excreted - as though a great angry
animal has walked across the countryside, eating up land, labor and
materials - and ****ting out houses - one turd looking more or less
the same as all the others.


What you are saying is that the building trend that started after WWII is
continuing, only the houses are bigger.


Amen to crappy McMansions-waste of a good alfalfa field. When searching
for my current home, I let the realtor know-in no uncertain terms-after
showing us a 1970's split-level ranch that I would not consider any
house built after the war. And I didn't mean the one John Wayne fought
in either. I meant the Great War. He did me one better and found us a
house built before what my friends from the South sometimes call "The
Late Unpleasantness" between the States. This puppy is framed with white
oak-including sills and joists that are 8X8 and hand-hewn.

It's not huge, but more than adequate for a family of 4-6. I'm having a
ball renovating too . .

If you are curious:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mrwizard/501/501.html

Dale Austin

patrick conroy wrote in
:

When the kidz are gone - the first thing I'm tearing down is... the
lawn!

"Take paradise and put up a parking lot." makes a helluva lota sense
to me now.

We tore out the front lawn, and put half of it into a front yard patio,
using tumbled pavers. The other half was replaced with a short seating
height wall, berms, and maybe 40 rose bushes.

The function is that of an old fashioned porch, which the design of our
house did not easily accomodate. Much of the year, in Northern California,
that is one of the most enjoyable areas of the home.

Of course, it couldn't happen until the kids moved out, and took their
cars. Now, the garage has been turned to its rightful purpose: Sheltering
big iron tools and fanciful, partially completed woodworking projects.

Now that there is a young grandson, that 200 sq ft of lawn in the back yard
is just about right.

Patriarch

(Mutt) wrote in
om:

snip

It also strikes me that while the Levittowns of old were indeed cookie
cutter mediocrity in design and concept, take a drive through any
tract development say, maybe, 25 years later, and you will see the
transformation that renovation, addition and personalization by a
succession of owners has wrought. This, too, will happen to the
McMansions, because as much as things change, that's as much as they
remain the same.

Except for the length of time it will take to overturn and overcome the
increasingly rigid covenants, codes and restrictions which are almost
always built in to these newer developments.

My dear wife has absolutely refused to ever consider another property with
a homeowners' association. Particularly one with self-appointed enforcers
of public taste. "Creativity be damned. It's too risky!"

Patriarch

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 15:58:57 -0400, dale austin
wrote:



Amen to crappy McMansions-waste of a good alfalfa field. When searching
for my current home, I let the realtor know-in no uncertain terms-after
showing us a 1970's split-level ranch that I would not consider any
house built after the war. And I didn't mean the one John Wayne fought
in either. I meant the Great War. He did me one better and found us a
house built before what my friends from the South sometimes call "The
Late Unpleasantness" between the States. This puppy is framed with white
oak-including sills and joists that are 8X8 and hand-hewn.


Them boys don't care if they strip off all the bottom land, or cut
down the hills that used to grow the corn.

The only piece of machinery that they've ever sat on was one designed
to take down, rather than bring up.

Their only understanding of nature is that is in the way of their
profits.

Damned near all of the land that I hunted and fished on as a child is
gone around here.

It makes me so damned sad I can hardly tell you about it.

Good on ya to have found that old house. I live in a stone house that
was here when Washington lead his band down the road, about a quarter
mile from here.

I wouldn't live in one of them sheet rock boxes if you paid me.




Regards,
Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 20:03:10 -0400, Tom Watson
wrote:

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 15:58:57 -0400, dale austin
wrote:



Amen to crappy McMansions-waste of a good alfalfa field. When searching
for my current home, I let the realtor know-in no uncertain terms-after
showing us a 1970's split-level ranch that I would not consider any
house built after the war. And I didn't mean the one John Wayne fought
in either. I meant the Great War. He did me one better and found us a
house built before what my friends from the South sometimes call "The
Late Unpleasantness" between the States. This puppy is framed with white
oak-including sills and joists that are 8X8 and hand-hewn.


Them boys don't care if they strip off all the bottom land, or cut
down the hills that used to grow the corn.

The only piece of machinery that they've ever sat on was one designed
to take down, rather than bring up.

Their only understanding of nature is that is in the way of their
profits.

Damned near all of the land that I hunted and fished on as a child is
gone around here.

I can sympathize- most of my old stomping grounds are gone as well,
and I'm not even in my thirties yet. Makes me think seriously about
Alaska.

It makes me so damned sad I can hardly tell you about it.

Good on ya to have found that old house. I live in a stone house that
was here when Washington lead his band down the road, about a quarter
mile from here.

I wouldn't live in one of them sheet rock boxes if you paid me.




Regards,
Tom.

"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston

Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1

On 05 Oct 2004 12:27:36 GMT, Scott Cramer
calmly ranted:

Tom Watson wrote:

In the regard of exterior detail, they are festooned with false
replicants of an earlier and more worthy age of architecture - as a
young child will drape themselves in the finery of their elders -
thinking themselves beautiful and sophisticated.

If you need evidence that money and taste are rarely found together, the
kind of God-awful luxury homes you describe proves the case beyond doubt.

You'll find the same kind of pretentious architrash up here in the White
Mountains, but these are second homes for the most part, used a couple of
weekends a year in some cases. The laughably incongruous mishmash of
complex gables, eyebrow windows, half-timbering, Victorian turrets, stone
facings, etc., is completely out of place next to the local buildings, or
anywhere else for that matter.

I call the style 'Geek Revival.'

Scott, currently second-homeless.

Hey, let's not be dissin' the poor Geeks, alright?


--
Strong like ox, smart like tractor.
----------------------------------
www.diversify.com Oxen-free Website Design

Paul Harvey gave a couple of statistics today. A 2200 sq. ft, 4 bedroom
home in North Dakota would sell for $130,000. The same exact home moved to
La Jolla, CA would be $1.75 million.
--
Ed

http://pages.cthome.net/edhome

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:06:51 GMT, patrick conroy
calmly ranted:

On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:39:31 -0500, "Swingman" wrote:


All the above notwithstanding, I am seeing a trend toward smaller houses in
the last couple of years as the population gets older. AAMOF, I am building
one now in one of the most desirable, upscale areas of Houston that is only
2980sf, with porches and balconies front and back, and a garage in the back.

An old retired couple down the street from me just built an 8,000
s/f mansion for the two of them. It has taken 2 years so far, but
the roof is on now and contractors still go up and down their drive
at least a dozen times a day. WTF do they need that much space for?
Silver Yuppies, I swear. It's a McMansion on the riverside, complete
with all the false gables, rounded and pointy thangs here and there,
and a 7' wide driveway. The concrete trucks had a HELL of a time and
the trucker with the trusses hauled himself out of there and brought
them back on a shorter and narrower truck after almost taking out
trees on both sides of the little lane where the house resides.



When the kidz are gone - the first thing I'm tearing down is... the
lawn!

"Take paradise and put up a parking lot." makes a helluva lota sense
to me now.

Joni said "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.", Pat.
I've never seen any good reason for a lawn. AAMOF, I'm thinking
of minimizing my front lawn when I tear out the spirea rootballs
this winter. My neighbor has volunteered his time and tractor for
the job. I think I'll put a nice used-RR-tie perimeter for the
St. John's Wort to grow in along the road, and then mound up a heap
of dirt and rocks on the front "lawn" where I can plant ANY other
things--things which -don't- need weekly mowing. The butterfly bushes
I put in last year are nearly covering the sides of the bridge (over
the no-water moat I built last year) now, so it all looks better.

I have enough room to put up an outbuilding on the West side. That
might be about right for a spray finishing and fumin' shack.


--
Strong like ox, smart like tractor.
----------------------------------
www.diversify.com Oxen-free Website Design

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in
m:


Paul Harvey gave a couple of statistics today. A 2200 sq. ft, 4
bedroom home in North Dakota would sell for $130,000. The same exact
home moved to La Jolla, CA would be $1.75 million.

Well, yeah. There's nothing quite like the La Jolla coastline in the
Dakotas, pretty though they may be.

I have a friend who grew up in the Dakotas, and talks of getting to the
dairy barn in winter via a tunnel in the snow drifts.

Patriarch,
who likes listening to "A Prairie Home Companion", and all, but, gee!

In article ,
wrote:

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:06:51 GMT, patrick conroy
calmly ranted:

On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:39:31 -0500, "Swingman" wrote:


All the above notwithstanding, I am seeing a trend toward smaller houses in
the last couple of years as the population gets older. AAMOF, I am building
one now in one of the most desirable, upscale areas of Houston that is only
2980sf, with porches and balconies front and back, and a garage in the back.

An old retired couple down the street from me just built an 8,000
s/f mansion for the two of them. It has taken 2 years so far, but
the roof is on now and contractors still go up and down their drive
at least a dozen times a day. WTF do they need that much space for?
Silver Yuppies, I swear. It's a McMansion on the riverside, complete
with all the false gables, rounded and pointy thangs here and there,
and a 7' wide driveway. The concrete trucks had a HELL of a time and
the trucker with the trusses hauled himself out of there and brought
them back on a shorter and narrower truck after almost taking out
trees on both sides of the little lane where the house resides.




SNIP


My brother just moved into a place he bought from two people in their 70s.
It's a large house (4500sqft, built in 1980s). Now I would think that two
people in their 70s, and not in the greatest health, according to my
brother, would be downsizing. WRONG--they have just completed building a
15,000sqft (that's right--15,000) house. My wife and I live in a 1100sqft
house. When she had a hard time visualizing 15,000 sqft, I told her that
would be like combining every house on her block.

david

ps. guess it would be ok if you didn't want to see each other for weeks at
a time.

"David E. Penner" wrote in message

My brother just moved into a place he bought from two people in their 70s.
It's a large house (4500sqft, built in 1980s). Now I would think that two
people in their 70s, and not in the greatest health, according to my
brother, would be downsizing. WRONG--they have just completed building a
15,000sqft (that's right--15,000) house. My wife and I live in a 1100sqft
house. When she had a hard time visualizing 15,000 sqft, I told her that
would be like combining every house on her block.

Wretched excess ... a local State Judge (with a license plate proclaiming
same) and her husband, doubling dipping from government "service" with the
tax payers footing the lifestyle, are doing something similar close by.
Despite jogging by me on most morning walks, she also routinely parks in
handicapped zones at the local Randall's, and No Parking zones at the post
office ... really down-to-earth, considerate, caring folks ... and lawyers
to the core.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/04/04

"Swingman" writes:

You can build a much bigger POS with a front loading garage on a smaller lot
... also it's often difficult to get a SUV into a rear garage on the 50' X
100' lots that are so prevalent these days and still get 3000sf of house,
which is about as small as the market will bear in some areas.

I have a new house specifically built with a garage in back. An SUV would
fit okay, but my F-350 pickup is nearly impossible to get into the garage.

(I only have an F-350 pickup to pull an RV, or I would have a much smaller
vehicle. I don't have big truck to show off like a lot of guys.)

All the above notwithstanding, I am seeing a trend toward smaller houses in
the last couple of years as the population gets older. AAMOF, I am building
one now in one of the most desirable, upscale areas of Houston that is only

My house is new and is only 1400 SF right now with two unfinshed bedrooms
(Total of 2,000 SF). Nobody thought I should build a house that small on
a $80,000 lot across from a lake.

Brian Elfert

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 19:50:03 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:


Joni said "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.", Pat.

Ok, ok...

"'Cuse me! While I kiss this guy!"
Da, da, daaaaaaaa! Da, Da, Daaaaaaaa! Da, Da, Daaaaaaaa!

On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 01:45:00 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski"
wrote:


Paul Harvey gave a couple of statistics today. A 2200 sq. ft, 4 bedroom
home in North Dakota would sell for $130,000. The same exact home moved to
La Jolla, CA would be $1.75 million.

Would be about $300,000ish - plus/minus $50K depending - in this area.

But, to me, it ain't the cost as much as it is the montly payment.
[ Hmmm - maybe I should sell cars. ]

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 23:29:58 GMT, patriarch
wrote:

Except for the length of time it will take to overturn and overcome the
increasingly rigid covenants, codes and restrictions which are almost
always built in to these newer developments.

HOAs cut both ways. I'm living in one, for the first time, now.
Thrice I've been glad they're there. Twice, they've annoyed me.
Once I've thought they didn't go far enough, and once I've thought
they went too far.

Upon reflection, maybe we should dump the HOA and start tossing a
coin!

On 06 Oct 2004 14:54:53 GMT, Brian Elfert wrote:
"Swingman" writes:

You can build a much bigger POS with a front loading garage on a smaller lot
... also it's often difficult to get a SUV into a rear garage on the 50' X
100' lots that are so prevalent these days and still get 3000sf of house,
which is about as small as the market will bear in some areas.

I have a new house specifically built with a garage in back. An SUV would
fit okay, but my F-350 pickup is nearly impossible to get into the garage.

(I only have an F-350 pickup to pull an RV, or I would have a much smaller
vehicle. I don't have big truck to show off like a lot of guys.)


One of our Theatre Friends Dad is a HUGE NASCAR fan. Every weekend his
RV is at a different race. He never misses one.

He chose an RV, then modified his garage to suit.

When they went to Indiana to pick up the new RV, his wife said, "This
will NEVER fit in our garage . . .

He said, "SURE it'll fit . . I built the garage from the
specifications.

One guess who was right, and who spent the next few weekends
RE-modifying his garage.

On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 16:06:41 GMT, patrick conroy
calmly ranted:

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 19:50:03 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:


Joni said "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.", Pat.

Ok, ok...

"'Cuse me! While I kiss this guy!"
Da, da, daaaaaaaa! Da, Da, Daaaaaaaa! Da, Da, Daaaaaaaa!

Jimmy's rolling over in his grave with that one.
"Kiss the sky", dufus.

How about Joni Mitchell's "Cool Water" (Snakes and Ladders
CD), where it sounds like she sings "f*ckin' music" instead
of "funky music" as she really does? It caused a lot of
noise from Moms and teachers when it came out, but
she had smartly enclosed the lyrics in the CD covernotes and
won the battle.

What blows me away is that bare skin and cursing are
"evil" to the powers that be but showing simulated
rape, dismemberment, disembowelment, etc. is potentially
OK in every flick released.

It reminds me of the airline's pen knife vs. pencil issue.

No rhyme nor reason there, huh?


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