"McMansions"

MSNBC is not the first to use the term McMansion. It's been around for quite a while. Some homes in general are obnoxiously large - much larger than most people could actually use. I can understand needing or wanting more space than what many 50 to 100 year old homes offer. Either they are too small or they use space very poorly.

What irks me though are many of the "tear-downs" in wonderful neighborhoods where the charm of the street and/or the neighborhood is not taken into consideration when building or re-building. Real Estate is more and more expensive and when you buy a home simply to tear it down and re-build, that gets more expensive. So people try to save money by building a "cookie-cutter" home rather than customize the look - inside and out. Sometimes, it isn't a cost savings feature, it is simply that they are building what they like with complete disregard for how it may or may not fit into the street, neighborhood, etc. On one hand, it's their money and they can do with it what they please; however at the same time, it's the charm of the architecture in many areas that makes the area they are choosing to re-build in what it is. So to completely disregard that is very counter productive.

Sometimes it is way beyond obnoxious - some people will buy two or three lots, get re-zoned and build a home 2 to 4 times larger than anything else on the block. It looks ridiculous. Okay, great, you have more money than most of your neighbors, congratulations. You're ruining the look and feel though!!

When Lori and I were looking nearly two years ago, it got to a point that we knew exactly what most of the homes and condos we were about to enter would look like. The floor plan's were rarely unique. It was annoying.

I'm all for re-building if that's necessary, but it is not that difficult to build something aesthetically attractive and appropriate while at the same time giving the owner more space, etc.

I've seen some great examples and some poor examples. Okay, venting session over.