I Have A Fever and I'm Bored

[ricevermicelli]

woodwardiocom linked to the Globe's Home of the Week, which is a death trap. That you probably can't keep warm for anything.

Note especially picture two, which is a shot of the top of the custom-built curio cabinet (seen from below in pic 3) from the top, taken from the top of the stairs. Don't you just want to climb onto it and leap to the couch?

The master bedroom is huge, and appears (from pics of the back of the house) to have big glass doors to a balcony, which the listing says has a hot tub. Also, it's above the garage. Bitch to heat. Even worse then the open-plan, cathedral-ceiling nightmare downstairs.

Sharply cornered granite counter tops. Mysterious absence of kitchen photos suggests badness.

Unfenced, in-ground pool.

I want to see pictures of where the car lift controls are in relation to the garage door controls.

This is terrible, terrible house design. Did the owners do it themselves? Do they know better now?

Comments

[macthud]

Probably not. That's pretty clearly built for grown-ups, by grown-ups, who never had, nor were, children.

I'd *almost* like to bring you and/or your progeny to show them the error of their ways at the open house. If only they would have to deal with the aftermath for everyone concerned, and not just the broken glass and such...

[mangosteen]

On the "annoying to heat from", I can only imagine how many developers waltzed into New England with visions of McMansions With Great Rooms(tm) dancing in their heads, only to find out that New Englanders probably looked at it, said "How the hell are you going to heat that?", and promptly walked out.

[ricevermicelli.livejournal.com]

I grew up in *Southboro*, dude. During the eighties. Check out the real estate tax rolls for Southboro, particularly the streets that were constructed during that decade.

The problem is not that New Englanders walked in, said "how the heck are you going to heat that?" and walked out again. The problem is that the developers built (not infrequently custom built) the McMansions, and the not-so-local (or maybe totally local, but not-so-smart) people with comparatively new money bought the McMansions, and then the bottom fell out of the market, leaving the buyer holding the bag. In the housing boom, this process repeated, really often.

I strongly suspect that this death trap of a house that I linked is less then five years old, and that the owners are fleeing the scene of their own crimes against usability.

[mrf-arch.livejournal.com]

Too many custom features to be a developer-built McMansion, even if the apparent quality is crap. Given the location, I'd bet that the house was custom built (or rebuilt) for someone involved with the Patriots, and is now on the market because said person is no longer with the team. (Admittedly, there are surely people with lots of money and bad taste floating around Foxborough who have nothing to do with the Pats, but a lot of the team members live right in the area, so it's not a bad bet...)

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

i'd love to see the heating/etc bills...

suspect that if it was built custom, that they probably used VERY good materials with high R factors/etc.

my 45 yo new to me house had an IR survey done, and apparently it's SOLID. go figure. lots of glass, double pane everywhere. seals. baffles. not much to improve, but i will.

not made for kids, but that's not a crime right?

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[mizarchivist]

What do you do with all that extra room in the master bedroom? Cha cha lessons? Also, we almost see the kitchen in the 4th picture. You'd think they'd want to show off the sub-zero freezer and 6 burner Viking range. Don't those come standard in McMansions?

[jealoussister3.livejournal.com]

Yes!! What are giant bedrooms for? Do people actually hang out in them on non-bed furniture?

[mangosteen]

So, I was under the general impression that the whole "master suite" trend came from the idea of "A living space within the house that the parents don't have to share with the kids." Thought of as a refuge within the house, it makes sense, but I wonder how many people actually use it like that.

[omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com]

Do you think they know their bathroom counter looks weirdly like an outhouse bench?

[drwex]

You are, I hope, familiar with http://unhappyhipsters.com/

Its funniness varies wildly, but the schadenfreude is always there.