UserNameless
Veteran
Shyt had to be a bad joke... 
Makes me appreciate Redman's MTV Cribs episode way more...
...not only many rappers, but many nouveau riche entertainers, and those who don't do proper consulting, buy the loathed, "McMansion" ... Don't get me wrong, I'd happily live in one...
...but many of those same "mansions" that generated so much excitement within MTV Cribs viewers are actually regarded as fools gold by market professionals and often features shoddy construction and head scratching designs, according to professional builders.
Stop letting them fool you, brethren.
Worst of McMansions
Houston, TX
Everything’s bigger in Texas, so they say. They also say “Don’t Mess With Texas®” which was an anti-littering campaign in the 80s(?) and these houses definitely qualify as littering so technically I’m not messing with Texas®.
To say that this house is a mess would be an understatement, and, if you’ve been reading this blog for the last couple of weeks, you’ll know why immediately.
This illustrious house, built in 2007 boasting 5 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms is currently for sale for $1,498,000despite the fact that it looks like it was made for, maybe, like, $8.
McMansions 101 Special Edition: Mansion vs McMansion (Part 1)
crabapplered:
mcmansionhell:
I get a lot of emails these days, (a good thing!) and a lot of them involve people sending me links to houses (or pictures of their own) asking me whether or not the house in question is or is not a McMansion. This post aims to explain the important differences between the two.
Part Two will make examples of specific houses (including houses that teeter on the line between mansion and McMansion) and explain why they are one vs the other.
For the purpose of clarity, I have omitted modernist and postmodernist houses from this guide. That’s a whole different can of worms that I’ll eventually address in its own post.
First off,
Where does suburban home territory end and Mansion/McMansion territory begin?
For the purpose of this exercise, Mansion/McMansion territory starts at a house that has two or more of following characteristics:
1.) 3000+ square feet
2.) 5 or more bedrooms
3.) 3 or more full bathrooms
4.) a three car garage.
Why?
- The average American has 2.5 kids. A 4-bedroom house enables each child to have its own room (something important when you’re a teenager, trust me) plus a guest room, where an elderly relative or other guests can stay for an extended period or merely spend the night. 2-to-2.5 bathrooms accommodates this family perfectly: the kids have a bathroom, the adults have a bathroom, and the house has a shared powder room or bathroom for visitors to use.
This means that each of the rooms has a designated purpose/person, and enables the family to live in complete luxury and comfort, with nobody having to sleep on the couch when grandma comes over.
Below: Typical 4-bedroom Ranch floor plan
(Personally, I think a three-bedroom house meets these accommodations perfectly well, in addition to still being livable as the parents become empty nesters, but many people defend the four bedroom house for these reasons.)
Also, I want to note an important caveat: Bedrooms are not always used for their intended purposes.
For example, a bedroom can be used by someone who is a musician for a living might need a space to practice without disturbing others, and someone who works from home needs an office where they can work in peace. For these people, the extra space is integral to their living and working comfortably, and there’s nothing to mock about that. For people who have a craft room or any other such space, it is my belief that making art is one of the true joys in life and is fundamental for human happiness, and a space devoted to creative activities is always a good space.
- Why 3000+ square feet? This number rounds out the highest square footage of American homes (2,736 in 2015) and is 500 square feet above the highest recorded average home size before the recession (2,521 in 2007). Houses of this size can appropriately be deemed above average.
Now that’s out of the way, the MAIN EVENT:
Mansion or McMansion: What Distinguishes the Two?
The distinctions between a Mansion and a McMansion can be divided into three categories:
1.) Age
2.) Craftsmanship (e.g. being designed for the space of the lot, the quality of the building materials)
3.) Architectural and Stylistic Integrity (how well historical design styles are integrated or reproduced, attention to detail and principles of design)
Starting off with No.1:
Part One: Age
Most “true” mansions are generally old, as the McMansion did become a phenomenon until the 1980s. Few large houses were built in the 1970s because of the energy crisis, and large houses above 3000 square feet built before 1980 and especially before 1960 were usually designed by architects. However, there are many, many homes designed in the 80s and beyond that are mansions rather than McMansions.
Large houses built with great care for historical precedence fall under what is called the New Traditional style. Architect Robert A.M. Stern is often credited as being the founding father of this style; his Shingle-style houses from the late 1970s inspired other architects to leave their modern academies and refocus themselves on traditional architecture.
So how do we determine between a McMansion and a New Traditional house?
Part Two: Craftsmanship
One of the defining features of a McMansion is that they were built big, and they were built cheap.
Relationship to the Landscape
Often, a New Traditional mansion carefully considers its environment and is built to accentuate, rather than dominate it.
A McMansion is out of scale with its landscape or lot, often too big for a tiny lot.
Choice of Materials
New Traditional houses tend to be clad in materials that reflect the specific styles they are trying to emulate. These are often masonry such as high quality brick or stone, and wooden shingles or siding.
McMansions on the other hand, tend to be clad in many different materials, often all at once, applied to the exterior as if they were wallpaper. Typical McMansion exterior claddings include manufactured stone veneers, stucco board (EIFS), vinyl siding, and imitation wood such as HardieBoard.
As you can see, in the New Traditional houses, great care was taken to use high quality and historically accurate building materials, whereas in the McMansions, cheap materials were used and the houses pay little attention to architectural precedent, eschewing quality for size.
Part Three: Architectural and Stylistic Integrity
Keep reading
I really love these posts. One thing I’d like to add is that I haven’t seen touched on yet is that snubbing McMansions for being badly designed isn’t just an aesthetic thing.
Simply put: if someone couldn’t be bothered to match the windows or make sure the columns are the same size, something that everyone can see, how likely do you think it is that they took the time on the little hidden bits? To get the wiring right? To properly insulate the walls? To do the roof shingles properly around those countless mismatched windows?
Also, though cheap materials can be a boon, if they’re installed incorrectly and without care to maximize their strength and durability they can instead turn into a steady financial drain. How often do you have to replace shingles on roofs built with no thought to their underlying structure? How often do the gutters get clogged because of poor water flow along that roof, and can you get at them? What about vinyl siding? You have to maintain it to keep it looking good, but how easy is it to do that maintenance when your house is built in a series of weird-ass cascading gables with nooks everywhere? Considering how the material used to build a house will age and how you will maintain the house as a whole is just as important as anything else in building a nice home!
preach
crabapplered Source: mcmansionhell reblog mcmansionhell approved
1,322 notes
Don't say you never knew, brethren.
Makes me appreciate Redman's MTV Cribs episode way more...
...not only many rappers, but many nouveau riche entertainers, and those who don't do proper consulting, buy the loathed, "McMansion" ... Don't get me wrong, I'd happily live in one...
...but many of those same "mansions" that generated so much excitement within MTV Cribs viewers are actually regarded as fools gold by market professionals and often features shoddy construction and head scratching designs, according to professional builders.
Stop letting them fool you, brethren.
Worst of McMansions
Houston, TX
Everything’s bigger in Texas, so they say. They also say “Don’t Mess With Texas®” which was an anti-littering campaign in the 80s(?) and these houses definitely qualify as littering so technically I’m not messing with Texas®.
To say that this house is a mess would be an understatement, and, if you’ve been reading this blog for the last couple of weeks, you’ll know why immediately.
This illustrious house, built in 2007 boasting 5 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms is currently for sale for $1,498,000despite the fact that it looks like it was made for, maybe, like, $8.
McMansions 101 Special Edition: Mansion vs McMansion (Part 1)
crabapplered:
mcmansionhell:
I get a lot of emails these days, (a good thing!) and a lot of them involve people sending me links to houses (or pictures of their own) asking me whether or not the house in question is or is not a McMansion. This post aims to explain the important differences between the two.
Part Two will make examples of specific houses (including houses that teeter on the line between mansion and McMansion) and explain why they are one vs the other.
For the purpose of clarity, I have omitted modernist and postmodernist houses from this guide. That’s a whole different can of worms that I’ll eventually address in its own post.
First off,
Where does suburban home territory end and Mansion/McMansion territory begin?
For the purpose of this exercise, Mansion/McMansion territory starts at a house that has two or more of following characteristics:
1.) 3000+ square feet
2.) 5 or more bedrooms
3.) 3 or more full bathrooms
4.) a three car garage.
Why?
- The average American has 2.5 kids. A 4-bedroom house enables each child to have its own room (something important when you’re a teenager, trust me) plus a guest room, where an elderly relative or other guests can stay for an extended period or merely spend the night. 2-to-2.5 bathrooms accommodates this family perfectly: the kids have a bathroom, the adults have a bathroom, and the house has a shared powder room or bathroom for visitors to use.
This means that each of the rooms has a designated purpose/person, and enables the family to live in complete luxury and comfort, with nobody having to sleep on the couch when grandma comes over.
Below: Typical 4-bedroom Ranch floor plan
(Personally, I think a three-bedroom house meets these accommodations perfectly well, in addition to still being livable as the parents become empty nesters, but many people defend the four bedroom house for these reasons.)
Also, I want to note an important caveat: Bedrooms are not always used for their intended purposes.
For example, a bedroom can be used by someone who is a musician for a living might need a space to practice without disturbing others, and someone who works from home needs an office where they can work in peace. For these people, the extra space is integral to their living and working comfortably, and there’s nothing to mock about that. For people who have a craft room or any other such space, it is my belief that making art is one of the true joys in life and is fundamental for human happiness, and a space devoted to creative activities is always a good space.
- Why 3000+ square feet? This number rounds out the highest square footage of American homes (2,736 in 2015) and is 500 square feet above the highest recorded average home size before the recession (2,521 in 2007). Houses of this size can appropriately be deemed above average.
Now that’s out of the way, the MAIN EVENT:
Mansion or McMansion: What Distinguishes the Two?
The distinctions between a Mansion and a McMansion can be divided into three categories:
1.) Age
2.) Craftsmanship (e.g. being designed for the space of the lot, the quality of the building materials)
3.) Architectural and Stylistic Integrity (how well historical design styles are integrated or reproduced, attention to detail and principles of design)
Starting off with No.1:
Part One: Age
Most “true” mansions are generally old, as the McMansion did become a phenomenon until the 1980s. Few large houses were built in the 1970s because of the energy crisis, and large houses above 3000 square feet built before 1980 and especially before 1960 were usually designed by architects. However, there are many, many homes designed in the 80s and beyond that are mansions rather than McMansions.
Large houses built with great care for historical precedence fall under what is called the New Traditional style. Architect Robert A.M. Stern is often credited as being the founding father of this style; his Shingle-style houses from the late 1970s inspired other architects to leave their modern academies and refocus themselves on traditional architecture.
So how do we determine between a McMansion and a New Traditional house?
Part Two: Craftsmanship
One of the defining features of a McMansion is that they were built big, and they were built cheap.
Relationship to the Landscape
Often, a New Traditional mansion carefully considers its environment and is built to accentuate, rather than dominate it.
A McMansion is out of scale with its landscape or lot, often too big for a tiny lot.
Choice of Materials
New Traditional houses tend to be clad in materials that reflect the specific styles they are trying to emulate. These are often masonry such as high quality brick or stone, and wooden shingles or siding.
McMansions on the other hand, tend to be clad in many different materials, often all at once, applied to the exterior as if they were wallpaper. Typical McMansion exterior claddings include manufactured stone veneers, stucco board (EIFS), vinyl siding, and imitation wood such as HardieBoard.
As you can see, in the New Traditional houses, great care was taken to use high quality and historically accurate building materials, whereas in the McMansions, cheap materials were used and the houses pay little attention to architectural precedent, eschewing quality for size.
Part Three: Architectural and Stylistic Integrity
Keep reading
I really love these posts. One thing I’d like to add is that I haven’t seen touched on yet is that snubbing McMansions for being badly designed isn’t just an aesthetic thing.
Simply put: if someone couldn’t be bothered to match the windows or make sure the columns are the same size, something that everyone can see, how likely do you think it is that they took the time on the little hidden bits? To get the wiring right? To properly insulate the walls? To do the roof shingles properly around those countless mismatched windows?
Also, though cheap materials can be a boon, if they’re installed incorrectly and without care to maximize their strength and durability they can instead turn into a steady financial drain. How often do you have to replace shingles on roofs built with no thought to their underlying structure? How often do the gutters get clogged because of poor water flow along that roof, and can you get at them? What about vinyl siding? You have to maintain it to keep it looking good, but how easy is it to do that maintenance when your house is built in a series of weird-ass cascading gables with nooks everywhere? Considering how the material used to build a house will age and how you will maintain the house as a whole is just as important as anything else in building a nice home!
preach
crabapplered Source: mcmansionhell reblog mcmansionhell approved
1,322 notes
Don't say you never knew, brethren.
