Tuesday, July 12, 2005
McMansions on my mind
Is it summer again already? Godliness. A lot has been happening lately. Most recently, happiness has flooded my life, distracting me from the continued absurdity of the big stage, in the form of my sweetheart having moved in with me. I don't think I could have expected how nice it would be. It is nice. I'm actually looking forward to domestic life; it sure beats the nonlife I had as a lonely bachelor. I'm a lousy housekeeper. Already we're talking about how to make my pad more interesting/comfy/etc.
There's also been lots of changes within my two bands. Read "changes" as "defections." I won't go into it here.
I have one thing to be bitchy/moany about. Last night we went to Lowe's to look at paint samples, lights, etc. I insisted on buying two of those house-plan books-cum-catalogs. They're sometimes fun to look through, see--for $8 you get 500 artists' renderings and floorplans for 500 stylish, quaint, flexible, enchanting, and 500-other-adjective Dream Homes, between 800 and 5000 square feet, that YOU can build! It's fun to imagine yourself and your significant other living in one. It's oddly thrilling to fantasize about the kickass home recording studio I could build in that "Bonus" room.
Then reality sets in. These things are basically what they call McMansions.
I get a sick feeling in my gut when I really get down to thinking about them. For lots of reasons. Something about them is really tantalizing, the same way that a gallon of Nestle Quik gulped down quickly is tantalizing.
I guess as living spaces they are pretty nice. They certainly are plenty more spacious than most of the older houses I'm familiar with, and way way larger than the house we now share. Lots of extra rooms. Some even have an atrium, solarium, rotunda, etc.
These'd be great if:
1) They were real. As in, real Victorian, real Tudor, real Cape Cod, etc.
2) They weren't designed to be magnificently, splendiforously, luxuriously shoddy.
3) They weren't, paradoxically, priced as if they really were mansions.
4) They were designed to be part of an actual neighborhood and/or community rather than a subdivision out in the boonies, where the silence has an unnerving Twilight Zone quality.
5) Living in one didn't pretty much define me as precisely the kind of person I loathe.
Jealousy probably has a lot to do with it. Class consciousness certainly does. So does my sometimes irritating need to "maintain my integrity," to not sell out (not that I could anyway); my disdain for pretentiousness and conspicuous consumption; my sympathy for aesthetic and historical fidelity in architecture; and my love of traditional-type neighborhoods, even if they don't love me and my propensity for practicing the guitar loud back.
We both think that Victorian houses are quite cool. You know, the ones with the turrets and the extensive porches? Assuming we ever get to where we can afford a house at all, I'd almost rather look for a real Victorian house. But that sucks because both of us would like to someday have an in-ground pool, and around here Victorian houses seem to have really tiny back yards, choked with dark green leafy vines.
Some of these catalog houses have turrets. Many could certainly have a pool out back. And many are even identified as "Victorian" in the book. They actually don't look very Victorian to me--they look like big modern suburban houses. But my, are the pictures pretty to look at!
Question is: is this the kind of house we really want to end up in? Is this the kind of neighborhood (er, neighborless hood, in this case)...or the kind of lifestyle that it represents?
Oh, and don't get me started on this so-called Urban Revival or whatever they call it style. I mean, if I want to live in the "Main Street USA" set on a movie studio backlot--oops, I forgot that the studios don't have backlots anymore, and they film everything in Canada and Australia anyway. How about other trendily rebellious housing styles for the upwardly mobile yet cutting-edge young professional? Try www.notsobighouse.com. Ugh. The only kinds of housing that make me gag harder are those luxury lofts they're marketing downtown, but I've bitched about those already.
My cynical take is to not worry because the chances of us ever getting to that level are probably almost nil anyway. This is a moral dilemma for yuppies. Neither of us are yuppies. Personally I hope we never have the misfortune of becoming some, or even succumbing to the kinds of dreck that they value.
First things first anyway: we have to get our modest--er, "quaint," in the 1-800-DREAM-HOME catalog--little abode repainted, decorated, arranged, etc. to our liking. Which is infinitely more fun.
One more thing: if I hear someone talk about entertaining guests in their "Great Room" one more time I'm gonna throttle 'em. It's an effin' living room, dammit!
My, my, am I in a weird mood today.
There's also been lots of changes within my two bands. Read "changes" as "defections." I won't go into it here.
I have one thing to be bitchy/moany about. Last night we went to Lowe's to look at paint samples, lights, etc. I insisted on buying two of those house-plan books-cum-catalogs. They're sometimes fun to look through, see--for $8 you get 500 artists' renderings and floorplans for 500 stylish, quaint, flexible, enchanting, and 500-other-adjective Dream Homes, between 800 and 5000 square feet, that YOU can build! It's fun to imagine yourself and your significant other living in one. It's oddly thrilling to fantasize about the kickass home recording studio I could build in that "Bonus" room.
Then reality sets in. These things are basically what they call McMansions.
I get a sick feeling in my gut when I really get down to thinking about them. For lots of reasons. Something about them is really tantalizing, the same way that a gallon of Nestle Quik gulped down quickly is tantalizing.
I guess as living spaces they are pretty nice. They certainly are plenty more spacious than most of the older houses I'm familiar with, and way way larger than the house we now share. Lots of extra rooms. Some even have an atrium, solarium, rotunda, etc.
These'd be great if:
1) They were real. As in, real Victorian, real Tudor, real Cape Cod, etc.
2) They weren't designed to be magnificently, splendiforously, luxuriously shoddy.
3) They weren't, paradoxically, priced as if they really were mansions.
4) They were designed to be part of an actual neighborhood and/or community rather than a subdivision out in the boonies, where the silence has an unnerving Twilight Zone quality.
5) Living in one didn't pretty much define me as precisely the kind of person I loathe.
Jealousy probably has a lot to do with it. Class consciousness certainly does. So does my sometimes irritating need to "maintain my integrity," to not sell out (not that I could anyway); my disdain for pretentiousness and conspicuous consumption; my sympathy for aesthetic and historical fidelity in architecture; and my love of traditional-type neighborhoods, even if they don't love me and my propensity for practicing the guitar loud back.
We both think that Victorian houses are quite cool. You know, the ones with the turrets and the extensive porches? Assuming we ever get to where we can afford a house at all, I'd almost rather look for a real Victorian house. But that sucks because both of us would like to someday have an in-ground pool, and around here Victorian houses seem to have really tiny back yards, choked with dark green leafy vines.
Some of these catalog houses have turrets. Many could certainly have a pool out back. And many are even identified as "Victorian" in the book. They actually don't look very Victorian to me--they look like big modern suburban houses. But my, are the pictures pretty to look at!
Question is: is this the kind of house we really want to end up in? Is this the kind of neighborhood (er, neighborless hood, in this case)...or the kind of lifestyle that it represents?
Oh, and don't get me started on this so-called Urban Revival or whatever they call it style. I mean, if I want to live in the "Main Street USA" set on a movie studio backlot--oops, I forgot that the studios don't have backlots anymore, and they film everything in Canada and Australia anyway. How about other trendily rebellious housing styles for the upwardly mobile yet cutting-edge young professional? Try www.notsobighouse.com. Ugh. The only kinds of housing that make me gag harder are those luxury lofts they're marketing downtown, but I've bitched about those already.
My cynical take is to not worry because the chances of us ever getting to that level are probably almost nil anyway. This is a moral dilemma for yuppies. Neither of us are yuppies. Personally I hope we never have the misfortune of becoming some, or even succumbing to the kinds of dreck that they value.
First things first anyway: we have to get our modest--er, "quaint," in the 1-800-DREAM-HOME catalog--little abode repainted, decorated, arranged, etc. to our liking. Which is infinitely more fun.
One more thing: if I hear someone talk about entertaining guests in their "Great Room" one more time I'm gonna throttle 'em. It's an effin' living room, dammit!
My, my, am I in a weird mood today.
