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 shitting 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
"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote in message
> "patrick conroy" <[email protected]> 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
On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 16:07:05 GMT, patrick conroy
<[email protected]> wrote:
>On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 19:47:01 -0700, Larry Jaques
><novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>Jimmy's rolling over in his grave with that one.
>>"Kiss the sky", dufus.
>
>"There's a bathroom on the right!"
>Ok - I'm done. :)
Not Jimmy, but
"Big jet's got a light out"
[credit to comedian whose name I have forgotten]
>
>I think Jimmy's rolling for a variety of reasons.
On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 22:30:13 -0400, Tom Watson <[email protected]> wrote:
>What is anathema to me is the concept of "volume space".
... snip
>The Chrysler Building rocks; the Twin Towers (rip) suck.
>
>Bobby Venturi can push his concept of Post-Modernism as much as he
>wants but the fact is that there is nothing new contained in it. It
>is a dissolution and diminution of elements and ornamentation.
>
I kind of understand where you are coming from, in my opinion, they
stopped writing music in about 1850 or so and it had been in decline from
the late 1780's or so until then with only a few brilliant exceptions.
... so I can see where someone might have the same attitude and
impression of architectural trends as well.
>
>
>Well, I've spewed my guts on this - have at it.
On Fri, 8 Oct 2004 14:54:43 -0600, "Jay Windley" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>
>"Rick Cook" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>|
>| Because the people they're trying to impress wouldn't know good
>| design and fine workmanship if it ran out from under the front
>| porch and bit them on the leg.
>
>That's really too bad.
>
>| Depends on what you're trying to do. My wife and I occasionally
>| play the 'when we win the lottery' game where we design our ideal
>| house.
>
>Yes, I do that too.
>
>Obviously you have to stay within your means on any project, and that means
>trade-offs. At least with me there's always a difference between what I
>want and what I can afford. The band saw I really want isn't the band saw I
>can afford. Which is okay too, in a way, because the band saw I really want
>would only fit in the shop I really want, which again isn't the shop I can
>afford.
>
>I suppose we all have our own ideas about what constitutes "nice things".
>
>--Jay
... and there I think you have hit the crux of it. If people are
acquiring these kinds of homes because that is what those people consider
"nice things", then who are any of us to denigrate that? OTOH, if someone
acquires anything: large house, small but elegant house, etc. simply to
impress others, then that is truly a sad thing. It's not the things we
have that necessarily give satisfaction, but what we do with the things we
have that give that satisfaction.
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 13:01:31 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]> wrote:
>Hubris it is. Whether it is rooted in ego gratification or a sense of being
>lost in a conformist nation is a nice discussion in itself. Someone made the
>undeniable point to me that people have a right to build whatever they want.
>(He did not say "can afford.") Granted, but personal rights are not the
>issue. Rather, where is the responsibility? Where is the very conservative
>urge to not waste, to preserve, to "conserve?" My brother-in-law built a
>3,600 sq ft. "retirement" home that is exactly twice the size of his
>previous one, replete with pool and waterfall, 10 foot ceilings and video
>theater. It's sad to think of all the good that might have been done with
>just the money wasted in that home.
>
>Bob
>
Why do you view something that someone has done with their own resources
for their satisfaction as money wasted and "not doing good?" Certainly
the people building the house benefited from its construction -- it
provided money and jobs. Those supplying water and fuel will benefit as
will those who provide maintenance and upkeep or who provide the supplies
for those activities.
It seems more Hubris to place oneself in judgement of what another does
with their resources and judging "all the good that might have been done
with just the money wasted ... "
> or
>"Tom Watson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> What is anathema to me is the concept of "volume space".
>>
>> The multi-story walk in at the entrance is beyond pretentious and
>> bleeds over into the concept of hubris.
>>
>> These little turds violate the expression of homeliness, that should
>> be the core consideration of residential architecture.
>>
>> They confuse the public expression with the private, and seek to take
>> on the trappings of grandiosity that are usually reserved for public
>> buildings.
>>
>> The spaces that they describe as the high percentage of their total
>> volume are uninhabitable and are meant to project nothing more than
>> the expression of ego.
>>
>>
>> Has there actually been an interesting viewpoint into architecture
>> since the beginning of the twentieth century?
>>
>> The Chrysler Building rocks; the Twin Towers (rip) suck.
>>
>> Bobby Venturi can push his concept of Post-Modernism as much as he
>> wants but the fact is that there is nothing new contained in it. It
>> is a dissolution and diminution of elements and ornamentation.
>>
>> The International Style is nothing more than a reduction of ornament
>> to the point of absurdity.
>>
>> BauHaus is the Corporate Mind and looks like absolute shit.
>>
>>
>> Well, I've spewed my guts on this - have at it.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 12:02:51 -0600, "Jay Windley"
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>Having grown up in a family of architects my dislike for the McMansion
>>>(a.k.a. the Starter Castle) knows few bounds.
>>>
>>>A good friend of mine owns one -- built as close to the property lines as
>>>the building code will allow; rooms sized not so much for comfort and
>>>utility as to intimidate and impress.
>>>
>>>Square footage for its own sake is bad. But that's not to say that lots
>>>of
>>>square feet aren't useful. Another friend owns a proper mansion built in
>>>the late 1800s sitting on several acres (complete with swan pond). While
>>>often mistaken for a train station, it does have the quality of being
>>>composed of livable, usable spaces properly married to the grounds. And
>>>her
>>>lifestyle is such that this is an appropriate house for her.
>>>
>>>What amuses me are those people who pay for such misproportioned and
>>>ill-suited surroundings, and then spend the majority of their time in the
>>>small, hidden-away spaces that are what they really wanted. Nancy, the
>>>owner of the train station, is a wealthy socialite who entertains
>>>frequently. The formal living room is a must for her. David, my other
>>>friend, is an engineer who does no formal entertaining. His formal living
>>>room gathers dust while the social center of his house is back in the
>>>great
>>>room.
>>>
>>>Another close friend, Charles, renovated an 1870s farmhouse (with an
>>>add-on
>>>dating to about 1930) into a perfectly-sized house for two people. It
>>>features the proverbial living-room-on-the-right and
>>>dining-room-on-the-left
>>>with a center staircase going up to the second floor. The second floor is
>>>really a unified attic which he has finished out into a spacious home
>>>office. The kitchen, bedroom, master bath, patio/pantry and laundry are
>>>all
>>>on the main floor -- not huge, but big enough. The main floor is perhaps
>>>1,500 square feet. The dining room isn't used often, but doubles as the
>>>display area for the couple's collectables. No garage. A simple shed in
>>>the yard provides the shop and storage area. This is not a spacious
>>>house,
>>>but it is a very comfortable house that "feels" large in the right places
>>>and cozy in the right places.
>>>
>>>I understand the economical need for "cookie-cutter" designs. Frank Lloyd
>>>Wright was a fan of cookie-cutter design, where it would mean that people
>>>could get an affordable house that fit all their needs. But where people
>>>obviously have the money to spend on a fine home, I fail to see why they
>>>apply that toward square footage as opposed to good design and fine
>>>workmanship. I see custom-designed homes (sadly, occasionally from
>>>architects who are friends of mine) that are monstrosities of the false
>>>gables, cheep veneers, and other features that characterize the McMansion.
>>>The baronial style is fine as long as you are willing to apply the full
>>>baronial aesthetic to it.
>>>
>>>Nothing irritates me more than mixing design idioms, or applying the
>>>ornaments from a certain style without attention paid to the
>>>organizational
>>>aesthetic in which those details are supposed to be applied. A plethora
>>>of
>>>false gables doth not a mansion make. Would you mix the fruit cup, the
>>>salad, the steak, the potatoes, and the cheesecake into one bucket?
>>>
>>>How much more satisfying to pay an architect a fair fee to design a house
>>>that fits you and your lifestyle, and who can help you distinguish what
>>>you
>>>want from what you think you want. How much more satisfying to have 2,000
>>>square feet of warm walnut than 8,000 square feet of featureless Sheetrock
>>>painted in Sherwin-Williams Off-White no. 8263 chalk-based latex.
>>>
>>>Perhaps the most telling episode in this state of affairs is David's
>>>confession that he spent several minutes one evening working the key in
>>>his
>>>front door and ringing the bell, only to find out he was attempting to
>>>enter
>>>the house one street over from his that happened to be fundamentally
>>>indistinguishable from his own. So much money, so little value.
>>>
>>>--Jay
>>
>> Regards,
>> Tom.
>>
>> "People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston
>>
>> Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
>> tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
>> http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1
>
On Sat, 09 Oct 2004 14:17:07 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:1097293011.Rh+n1k/i6qZ8D+HBQfZvrw@teranews...
>> On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 13:01:31 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
... snip
>> Why do you view something that someone has done with their own resources
>> for their satisfaction as money wasted and "not doing good?" Certainly
>> the people building the house benefited from its construction -- it
>> provided money and jobs.
>
>As would the construction of an appropriately-scaled home.
>
... nsip
>able to help them.
>It is with great humility that I ask you to butt out of situations with
>which you are not concerned, and cease from your own judgments of same.
>
>Bob Schmall
>
No comment would have been made had you not posted a judgmental statement
in a world forum.
TW, you've got a way with words, I must say...
Tom Dacon
"Tom Watson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> 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 shitting 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 Wed, 06 Oct 2004 16:06:41 GMT, patrick conroy
<[email protected]> calmly ranted:
>On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 19:50:03 -0700, Larry Jaques
><novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> 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?
---
- Friends don't let friends use FrontPage -
http://diversify.com Dynamic Website Programming
Florida perchance?
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 06:00:34 GMT, "Jack" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>Looking forward to retiring from paradise to someplace with a reasonable
>cost of living...
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> >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 shitting 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".
>
And us model railroaders call a house "a thick roof over the layout"
:-).
Wonder what size the basement is in those things? Or if they even have
one?
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> 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.
>
Very true.
At the opposite end, my wife and I lived for 5 years in a 31 foot 5th
wheel - before slideouts. All of 250 square feet. We now live in a
1500 square foot doublewide in a seniors park.
Our comment when we moved in? "Everything is so damm far away!"
So I've derived my own theory. A thousand square feet and a basement (I
do wish for a basement) is enough for any couple. Add 100 square feet
for each kid.
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> Has there actually been an interesting viewpoint into architecture
> since the beginning of the twentieth century?
>
The Guggenheim?
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
And I think that brings up another point. Compare this cost difference in the US, just a few states away with the cost
of doing business anywhere in the world. Do you think that the cost of a widget, with all manufacturing costs the same,
except for the cost of living, would be the same to produce in CA as it would in ND ? Heck the cost of housing in ND is
1/10 that of CA. Granted the scenery is not the same, but when I go to the store to buy that widget, I could care less
what the scenery at the manufacturing facility is. Now for all the CA and ND residents that would read this, my intent
is not to slam you or your *chosen* lifestyle, I am just pointing out a simple fact.
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.
"Swingman" <[email protected]> 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
Jay Windley wrote:
<snip>
> I fail to see why they apply that toward square footage as opposed to good
> design and fine workmanship.
Because the people they're trying to impress wouldn't know good design and fine
workmanship if it ran out from under the front porch and bit them on the leg.
In fairness, I have to point out this is not a new phenomenon. In an earlier
life I was on the board of directors of a museum which acquired a Queen Anne
mansion built in the 1870s for a leading merchant family in a small western
town. Once we got it on the museum grounds, we had to renovate the house.
Talk about an experience! Talk about shoddy workmanship where it wouldn't show!
I was particularly charmed by t he fact that the chimney was a structural member
helping to support the upper floors. There was stuff like that all through the
house.
> How much more satisfying to pay an architect a fair fee to design a house
> that fits you and your lifestyle, and who can help you distinguish what you
> want from what you think you want. How much more satisfying to have 2,000
> square feet of warm walnut than 8,000 square feet of featureless Sheetrock
> painted in Sherwin-Williams Off-White no. 8263 chalk-based latex.
Depends on what you're trying to do. My wife and I occasionally play the 'when
we win the lottery' game where we design our ideal house. The place is huge, but
almost all the space is libraries, workshops, sewing rooms and a kitchen the
size of Texas. The actual living space usually comes out between 1200-2000 sq.
ft.
>
>
> Perhaps the most telling episode in this state of affairs is David's
> confession that he spent several minutes one evening working the key in his
> front door and ringing the bell, only to find out he was attempting to enter
> the house one street over from his that happened to be fundamentally
> indistinguishable from his own. So much money, so little value.
Does anyone here remember a Limeliters' song called "Charlie The Midnight
Marauder"? Based on an actual incident, so I'm told.
--RC
>
>
> --Jay
> On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 15:28:20 GMT, patriarch
> <<patriarch>[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >The problem I have is now trying to reconcile the notion of "modest home
> >with a grand shop". Plus a "large quilting studio" for LOML.
> >
> >You see where the problem lies? A 24x40 shop is wretched excess for most
> >of my acquaintances, whereas a swimming pool and a 4500 sq ft home is
> >somehow "appropriate".
> >
> >Patriarch
>
I'm sorry, I don't see the problem at all. Your acquaintances may think you're
a little peculiar, but that's their look-out. To me it is perfectly logical to
have shop space four or five times the size of the living area (less the
enormous library and huge kitchen, of course.)
As I see it this is the direct opposite of the MacMansion. A house built to
suit you rather than to impress other people.
--RC
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 <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> 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 shitting 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
"Bob Schmall" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<DpS9d.67908
With all due respect, Bob, it seems you have a personal problem here;
why jump on Mark/Juniata for expressing their opinion.
I am truly sorry to hear of the troubles of your extended family, but
the "butt out" comment was over the top IMHO.
Mutt
[email protected]>...
> "Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:1097293011.Rh+n1k/i6qZ8D+HBQfZvrw@teranews...
> >
[SNIP]
> The individual who built that McMansion has a sister who was fired for no
> cause just before her husband contracted
> the most vicious form of cancer. Part of his arm was cut out and he can't
> work any more at his trade. Another sister's husband lost his career after
> he had a stroke and couldn't return to his job. She works two jobs--at
> 59--to keep them going.
> If he had built the house without the f-ing waterfall, he might have been
> able to help them.
> It is with great humility that I ask you to butt out of situations with
> which you are not concerned, and cease from your own judgments of same.
>
> Bob Schmall
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 15:58:57 -0400, dale austin <[email protected]>
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
"Bob Schmall" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> "...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
Lobby Dosser <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<F8K9d.108$y77.93@trnddc05>...
> > Didn't FLW do the the big hotel in Tokyo from which MacArthur ran
> > post-war Japan?
>
> Correct. Imperial Hotel, Tokyo.
I bet the roof leaked. I wonder if McArthur bumped his head in the doorways.
Dick "function over form" Durbin
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 shitting 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
"...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" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> 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 shitting 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 05 Oct 2004 12:27:36 GMT, Scott Cramer <[email protected]>
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
On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 12:02:51 -0600, "Jay Windley"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>Nothing irritates me more than mixing design idioms, or applying the
>ornaments from a certain style without attention paid to the organizational
>aesthetic in which those details are supposed to be applied.
Well said!
>A plethora of
>false gables doth not a mansion make. Would you mix the fruit cup, the
>salad, the steak, the potatoes, and the cheesecake into one bucket?
Taste is - well subject to one's taste. So many factors apply - from
nature to nuture. Unfortunately money and style aren't always
together. As evidenced by my Tour-Of-Horror-Home Eyetalian Villa.
Heck, AFIAC, too many people hang their pictures too high... :)
"Doug Miller" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
>
> 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.
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> I've still got over 300 of them. My old Pioneer turney thing still
> pluggin along too!
>
> >
> > Speaking of LP's - anyone else still shlepping theirs around?
>
Yep. Still buy good ones at estate sales too. For fifty cents it's
hard to resist stuff I like. One of my many tasks in the future will be
to copy them to CDs - if I live long enough :-).
Last week I got a George Burns record and two from the Tiajuana Brass.
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> >Yep. Still buy good ones at estate sales too. For fifty cents it's
> >hard to resist stuff I like. One of my many tasks in the future will be
> >to copy them to CDs - if I live long enough :-).
>
> Skip a step and rip them straight to MP3s. CD is going to be as dead as the 8
> track in a few years.
>
OK, so I don't keep up :-). I thought MP3 was a recording technique.
You're telling me it's a separate and distinct medium? I guess I'll
have to do a google.
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
>OK, so I don't keep up :-). I thought MP3 was a recording technique.
>You're telling me it's a separate and distinct medium? I guess I'll
>have to do a google.
MP3 (WMA or whatever) is the digital recording and playback of music. No more
little bits of plastic.
That is why RIAA has their panties in a wad over it. They aren't trying to
protect the music business, just the plastic business.
I haven't used a record, tape or CD to listen to music for almost 4 years. Once
you figure out you can have instant access to a thousand albums with the touch
of a button you wonder why anyone would.
I have MP3 players in all of my cars and 2 in the house. With networking the
house players can all be connected to a central server.
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] says...
> I have MP3 players in all of my cars and 2 in the house. With networking the
> house players can all be connected to a central server.
>
OK, what media do the players use?
--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?
>> I have MP3 players
>OK, what media do the players use?
The music is digital, stored on a hard drive. There is no real "media". It is
just data.
You can transport it on CDRs, DVDs or any other digital media but I just keep
mine on hard drives.
Just to keep this on topic 2 of the 4 PC based players I use have wooden cases.
"Andrew Barss" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> Well, the sampling rate for a typical MP3 is about one one-hundredth
> of that for a CD. So, go with MP3s if you like really degraded sound.
>
Precisely. Noticeably degraded sound.
--
-Mike-
[email protected]
Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
:>OK, so I don't keep up :-). I thought MP3 was a recording technique.
:>You're telling me it's a separate and distinct medium? I guess I'll
:>have to do a google.
: MP3 (WMA or whatever) is the digital recording and playback of music. No more
: little bits of plastic.
: That is why RIAA has their panties in a wad over it. They aren't trying to
: protect the music business, just the plastic business.
: I haven't used a record, tape or CD to listen to music for almost 4 years. Once
: you figure out you can have instant access to a thousand albums with the touch
: of a button you wonder why anyone would.
Well, the sampling rate for a typical MP3 is about one one-hundredth
of that for a CD. So, go with MP3s if you like really degraded sound.
-- Andy BArss
Hi Greg,
I agree completely. After having ripped my 400+ CD collection to my HD,
I seldom play directly from the originals anymore. I use 192k VBR and
the sound is excellent and identical to my aging ears. Each CD used 50
to 100 MB space, depending on TT, so I get about 10-15 discs/GB. Plenty
of space on my 80 gig HD.
The great thing is that you can compose custom playlists for whatever
occasion you want, shuffle etc, etc. I have an older Mac and use
Soundjam (precursor to I-Tunes, I believe).
The woodworking part came in (sort of) when I ran wires through the
walls from the computer to the receiver, speaker selector and into the
kitchen, DR and deck - each with its own volume control. It was a PITA,
but it was worth it. Lots of drywall patching!
I think that you can do all this wireless now, but I like all that
copper.
I still have to get the music into the shop tho!
Lou
In article <[email protected]>, Greg
<[email protected]> wrote:
> >Well, the sampling rate for a typical MP3 is about one one-hundredth
> >of that for a CD. So, go with MP3s if you like really degraded sound.
>
> 100:1??? bullshit!
> Both use a 44kz sample rate.
> MP3 just uses a compression scheme that reduces the file size by about 1/5 -
> 1/10 depending on bit rate. You can save them in WAV at exactly the same
> resolution if you are that much of a purist. The price of disk drives is so
> low
> these days that this is a reasonable option.
>
> I defy you to tell the difference between a 256 kbs MP3 and CD when played on
> the normal stereo system in the usual home setting. In a moving car with 60
> or
> 70 db of background noise your CD "quality" is totally wasted and you can
> probably use 128k or even 64k.
> 320kbs MP3 is far superior to what you can get from FM radio, Vinyl or tape.
> It
> is certainly better than the average stereo system can reproduce. If it wasn't
> so good the RIAA would not have their panties in such a wad over it.
> The people who say MP3s are "really degraded" are the same folks who think
> they
> can hear the oxygen in their speaker cables. Most of us don't live in a sound
> conditioned space with a $10,000 sound system and if you are really a
> woodworker your hearing is probably "really degraded" more than an MP3
> anyway.
> There is as much bullshit going on in the marketing of stereos as there is in
> golf clubs, exercise equipment and marital aids. If you really think it works,
> it works.
>I still have to get the music into the shop tho!
My pool bar player is actually in the shop. It is wired through the wall to the
monitor and keyboard in the pool bar. I also have speakers in the shop tho. My
"keyboard" is actually a Seeburg 3W1 wallbox running through a keyboard card.
This is a DOS player (MPXPLAY) that can select songs by number. Perfect match
for a jukebox. It defaults to random play but that is all configuration
options.
I run the same software in the cars. "Key on" to "music" in about 15 seconds,
no crashes and no shutdown.
>Well, the sampling rate for a typical MP3 is about one one-hundredth
>of that for a CD. So, go with MP3s if you like really degraded sound.
100:1??? bullshit!
Both use a 44kz sample rate.
MP3 just uses a compression scheme that reduces the file size by about 1/5 -
1/10 depending on bit rate. You can save them in WAV at exactly the same
resolution if you are that much of a purist. The price of disk drives is so low
these days that this is a reasonable option.
I defy you to tell the difference between a 256 kbs MP3 and CD when played on
the normal stereo system in the usual home setting. In a moving car with 60 or
70 db of background noise your CD "quality" is totally wasted and you can
probably use 128k or even 64k.
320kbs MP3 is far superior to what you can get from FM radio, Vinyl or tape. It
is certainly better than the average stereo system can reproduce. If it wasn't
so good the RIAA would not have their panties in such a wad over it.
The people who say MP3s are "really degraded" are the same folks who think they
can hear the oxygen in their speaker cables. Most of us don't live in a sound
conditioned space with a $10,000 sound system and if you are really a
woodworker your hearing is probably "really degraded" more than an MP3 anyway.
There is as much bullshit going on in the marketing of stereos as there is in
golf clubs, exercise equipment and marital aids. If you really think it works,
it works.
"J. Clarke" <[email protected]> wrote:
>Andrew Barss wrote:
>> I was in error -=- but the compression rate used by iTunes, and as far as
>> I know *all* online music services, is compressed in the 128kbps range.
>> That really is quite lossy, and way below the amount of data that a CD
>> encodes.
>
>Uh, a CD samples at 44kHz. 128 is not "way below" 44.
What is the relationship between a sampling rate in kHz and a bit rate
in kbps?
--
Alex -- Replace "nospam" with "mail" to reply by email. Checked infrequently.
"alexy" wrote in message
:
>
> >Andrew Barss wrote:
>
> >> I was in error -=- but the compression rate used by iTunes, and as far
as
> >> I know *all* online music services, is compressed in the 128kbps range.
> >> That really is quite lossy, and way below the amount of data that a CD
> >> encodes.
> >
> >Uh, a CD samples at 44kHz. 128 is not "way below" 44.
>
> What is the relationship between a sampling rate in kHz and a bit rate
> in kbps?
In the world of digital audio they are two different things. What follows is
purposely a _very_ simplified explanation, so if some dipshit wants to get
anal, GFY in advance:
The "bit rate" defines "resolution", or the number of bits used to define
the sample, and directly correlates to the "dynamic range" available in the
digital recording (difference between the lowest and loudest sound).
A CD is 16 bit resolution, a standard mp3 is 128 mbps
The "sample rate defines" how frequently the sound is sampled and converted
to digital, and directly correlates to frequency response of the digital
recording. Without going into the sordid details, the frequency response of
a digital recording is roughly twice the sampling rate. A CD has a sampling
rate of 44.1 kHz, which means the highest frequency that is reproduced is
roughly 88.2 KHz.
(Although you can't hear this high, these higher frequencies do color the
sound at audible frequencies, which is why an old fart recording engineer
like me can still record and mix past the prime of my current set of ears.)
A CD is standardized at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate, and a standard mp3 also
has a sampling rate of 44.kHz.
...basically, if it sounds good to your ears, that is all that counts.
--
www.e-woodshop.net
www.hsound.com
Last update: 10/04/04
"loutent" wrote in message
> I agree completely. After having ripped my 400+ CD collection to my HD,
> I seldom play directly from the originals anymore. I use 192k VBR and
> the sound is excellent and identical to my aging ears. Each CD used 50
> to 100 MB space, depending on TT, so I get about 10-15 discs/GB. Plenty
> of space on my 80 gig HD.
These days I do most of my recreational listening over an iPod, either
plugged directly into the stereo in the truck/shop, or with iTunes on a
computer.
I have 2500 of just my favorite tunes on the iPod/iTunes, and the only place
the difference in sound quality is apparent, or bugs me, is in the studio
over a tuned pair of near field monitors. Everywhere else it is acceptable
... AAMOF, listening is relative and your ears adjust quickly to lower sound
quality, witness the lowly cassette of yore.
Not to mention that I would rather hear a low quality recording of a good
song, than an audiophile quality recording of a bad song.
.... and I'd kill to keep someone from stealing my iPod.
--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/04/04
"Jay Windley" wrote in message
>
> "Swingman" wrote in message
> | Very well done, Jay! ... you obviously don't have the same number of
> tenons
> | (obww) to cut that I do before going back to the studio this evening. :)
>
> Thanks; I'm glad you appreciated it. Fortunately (or unfortunately as
your
> perspective suggests) I mess with digital data streams during the day as
my
> profession and relegate woodworking to evenings and weekends. But being
> also a musician and audiophile, these topics interest me.
(Takng a break) I mix the times up almost daily (mess with digital streams,
woodworking (among other things)) Many of my weekends these past few years
have been spent playing/touring with a Western Swing Band
(www.wildriverband.com).
I admittedly was drug kicking and screaming into the digital age (out of
pecuniary self-defense), and still listen in awe to those 2" analog 16
track, 30 ips drum tracks I cut back in the late seventies, early eighties.
What I don't miss is the constant deck/head/tape alignment/maintenance/wear,
cost of tape, razor blade editing/splicing, and linear access to the
content, all of which accounted for beaucoup studio time/cost during those
analog years. The hassle/cost of storage remains about the same ...
basically traded "bulky" for "fragile".
All said, and from the perspective of running a studio as a business, I
would not want to go back to an all analog world. The convenience of digital
audio, and ease of editing, _almost_ makes up for what these old analog ears
miss, as 'unrobust' as digital is.
Downside is that under every rock there is a self-styled "recording/master
engineer" with a computer in the bedroom/knapsack, little knowledge of sound
and how to get it, and a sadly talentless case of the endeavors ... proven
by a cursory trip through your radio dial any hour of the day.
Anyway, I appreciated the depth immediately ... you obviously know your
digital "stuff".
--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/04/04
Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
:>Well, the sampling rate for a typical MP3 is about one one-hundredth
:>of that for a CD. So, go with MP3s if you like really degraded sound.
: 100:1??? bullshit!
I was in error -=- but the compression rate used by iTunes, and as far as
I know *all* online music services, is compressed in the 128kbps range.
That really is quite lossy, and way below the amount of data that a CD
encodes.
I don't have particularly good hearing; I'm hardly an audiophile; and I
don't believe in Monster cables, mopane disks (obww content) on top of my
speakers, or any of the other mystical claims of the audionut world.
But I've heard MP3s of ther sort you czsn download frfom commerical sites;
and I've heard CDs of the same tracks; and there really is an audible
difference, and a big one even to this casual listener.
: MP3 just uses a compression scheme that reduces the file size by about 1/5 -
: 1/10 depending on bit rate.
Yup. And do you think that the 80-90% of data that is lost by this
compression method doesn't result in degradation of the sound?
DAGS on "iPod compression CD", and you'll find a bunch of reports of this
lossyness.
You can save them in WAV at exactly the same
: resolution if you are that much of a purist. The price of disk drives is so low
: these days that this is a reasonable option.
Sure -- but that assumes you start out owning the CD and can choose the
resolution. That is not an option, AFAIK, with any of the online
commercial sites.
: I defy you to tell the difference between a 256 kbs MP3 and CD when played on
: the normal stereo system in the usual home setting.
I can hear it. If you can't -- great. But I can -- loss of
soundstage separation of instruments, loss of treble, etc.
In a moving car with 60 or
: 70 db of background noise your CD "quality" is totally wasted and you can
: probably use 128k or even 64k.
Or 8-track, which has about the same resolution as a typical commercial
MP3.
: 320kbs MP3 is far superior to what you can get from FM radio, Vinyl or tape.
Not so sure there about vinyl. I'm agnostic in the debate, but I've seen
compelling data from audio engineers that a freshly pressed LP has several
times the audio resolution of a CD.
It
: is certainly better than the average stereo system can reproduce. If it wasn't
: so good the RIAA would not have their panties in such a wad over it.
Hunh? They're worried because the MP3 format (at typical resolution) is
prety good, and easy to copy and make avail;able on the web.
Big difference between "pretty good" and "Cd quality".
-- Andy Barss
If you rip your own you can choose any resolution you like. Most MP3s posted on
ABSM newsgroups are 256k or 320k. The reality is, most places I listen will
have enough background noise and poor acoustics such that 64 kbs would probably
work.
If you set in a foam room with a great stereo and you just groove on the music,
then you need CDs, oxygen free cables and all that stuff but when you put out
the doobie and actually go do something while you are listening to your music
you are wasting all that quality.
>Or 8-track, which has about the same resolution as a typical commercial
>MP3.
8 Track was 1/4" tape at 3 IPS. That was pretty much the state of the art in
the 60s. The bad reputation came from cheap players and substandard cartridges.
If you use a real Lear cartridge in a quality machine it was as good as the
open reel machines. RIAA jammed cassettes down our throat because the media was
cheaper and they could make more profit.
Andrew Barss wrote:
> Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
> :>Well, the sampling rate for a typical MP3 is about one one-hundredth
> :>of that for a CD. So, go with MP3s if you like really degraded sound.
>
> : 100:1??? bullshit!
>
> I was in error -=- but the compression rate used by iTunes, and as far as
> I know *all* online music services, is compressed in the 128kbps range.
> That really is quite lossy, and way below the amount of data that a CD
> encodes.
Uh, a CD samples at 44kHz. 128 is not "way below" 44.
> I don't have particularly good hearing; I'm hardly an audiophile; and I
> don't believe in Monster cables, mopane disks (obww content) on top of my
> speakers, or any of the other mystical claims of the audionut world.
>
>
> But I've heard MP3s of ther sort you czsn download frfom commerical sites;
> and I've heard CDs of the same tracks; and there really is an audible
> difference, and a big one even to this casual listener.
Which tells you absolutely nothing about MP3. Only about the quality of the
MP3s that you got from those specific sites, which were recorded from God
knows what using God knows what by God knows who.
> : MP3 just uses a compression scheme that reduces the file size by about
> : 1/5 - 1/10 depending on bit rate.
>
> Yup. And do you think that the 80-90% of data that is lost by this
> compression method doesn't result in degradation of the sound?
First, 80-90% is not lost. You can get 40% compression with no loss at all.
MP3 goes beyond that by using a model that degrades the signal in ways that
an expert panel of listeners can't detect using recordings specifically
selected for the purpose.
> DAGS on "iPod compression CD", and you'll find a bunch of reports of this
> lossyness.
Try just searching "MP3 compression" instead. The fact that MP3 is lossy is
not any great secret. It was designed to be lossy, it's known to be lossy,
the cleverness of the algorithms is in how they deal with the loss.
> You can save them in WAV at exactly the same
> : resolution if you are that much of a purist. The price of disk drives is
> : so low these days that this is a reasonable option.
>
>
> Sure -- but that assumes you start out owning the CD and can choose the
> resolution. That is not an option, AFAIK, with any of the online
> commercial sites.
You seem to be confusing two issues here, the performance of MP3 as a
compression algorithm and the quality of the recordings downloadable from
"legal" music sites.
> : I defy you to tell the difference between a 256 kbs MP3 and CD when
> : played on the normal stereo system in the usual home setting.
>
> I can hear it. If you can't -- great. But I can -- loss of
> soundstage separation of instruments, loss of treble, etc.
You've done that specific comparison, played back a CD and 256 kb/s MP3 that
you RIPped from that CD using LAME or another high quality encoder, both on
the same device, and had someone switch the two randomly while you were not
looking? And you can hear the difference? Try 320 then. And if you can
hear _that_ then call the MPEG committee as they'll want to use you as a
tester.
> In a moving car with 60 or
> : 70 db of background noise your CD "quality" is totally wasted and you
> : can probably use 128k or even 64k.
>
>
> Or 8-track, which has about the same resolution as a typical commercial
> MP3.
>
>
> : 320kbs MP3 is far superior to what you can get from FM radio, Vinyl or
> : tape.
>
> Not so sure there about vinyl. I'm agnostic in the debate, but I've seen
> compelling data from audio engineers that a freshly pressed LP has several
> times the audio resolution of a CD.
So does 320 kb/sec MP3. However all of them can record signals to 22 KHz
and the number of humans whose acoustic range goes above that level can
probably be counted on the fingers of one hand, so anything beyond that
level would seem to be irrelevant for all but a very few gifted
individuals.
> It
> : is certainly better than the average stereo system can reproduce. If it
> : wasn't so good the RIAA would not have their panties in such a wad over
> : it.
>
>
> Hunh? They're worried because the MP3 format (at typical resolution) is
> prety good, and easy to copy and make avail;able on the web.
> Big difference between "pretty good" and "Cd quality".
While this is true it's not really relevant to the discussion.
> -- Andy Barss
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
"Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
|
| In the world of digital audio they are two different things. What follows
is
| purposely a _very_ simplified explanation, so if some dipshit wants to
get
| anal, GFY in advance:
Noted. I stand F in advance.
| A CD is 16 bit resolution, a standard mp3 is 128 mbps
As you noted, two very different things. What follows is a less simplified
explanation, meant neither to upstage, correct, nor to annoy Swingman.
Digitization of sound in the simplest case, as you noted, is a matter of
taking a certain number of samples every second and representing each sample
as a number that describes the amplitude of the sound at that instant.
Two values -- the sampling rate and the sampling resolution -- dictate the
quality of the encoding. The telephone uses 8 bits per sample. This gives
you 256 possible levels of sound between the faintest and the loudest sound.
It samples at 8 kHz, or 8,000 times per second. So once every 1/8000 second
it checks the sound amplitude and assigns it a number between 0 and 255
depending on where it falls in the loud-soft range. So every second the
telephone produces 64,000 bits of information that can be used to
reconstruct the signal at the other end.
A compact disc, on the other hand, uses 16 bits per sample, giving 65,536
possible levels of sound at each instant. This is an important increase in
quality. Sound, especially music, is a convolution of many different waves
at a wide range of frequencies. You tell the difference in character
between a violin, and oboe, and a trumpet all playing the same note by the
relative presence and absence of overtones that occur at very high
frequencies and "beat" against each other. Having only 256 levels of sound
"forces" sound to be at one level or another, possibly erasing and important
overtone. That's why you don't necessarily recognize voices over the
phone -- you rely on the overtones to discern Jim's voice from Janice's.
The CD also samples at 44.1 kHz. That 16-bit sample is taken once ever
1/44100 second. This figure was chosen because it was thought at the time
that the human ear could only hear frequencies up to about 22 kHz and that
any tighter frequencies were inaudible. (Now we believe that the human ear
may hear sounds as high as 40-50 kHz.) In signal processing, the Nyquist
principle says that if you want to digitally capture a signal at 22 KHz, you
have to sample it at twice that frequency or greater, or 44+ kHz.
These two values together define the CD sample, which samples two channels
of sound at those parameters, producing 1,411,200 bits of information every
second.
Now comes the bandwidth issue. Whatever you use to store and transmit those
signals in that format has to be capable of delivering the information at
the proper rate. Telephone equipment has to be capable of delivering 64,000
bits per second (bps) per telephone call. CD equipment has to be capable of
delivering 1.4 Mbps. In some contexts that bandwidth (data-carrying
capacity) simply isn't available, or is expensive to provide.
Enter MPEG and its sound encodings. MPEG is primarily an information
*transmission* format designed to control the transfer of audio and video
information over certain delivery systems such as cable and satellite.
Those systems have inherent data-delivery rate limits that may be fairly
draconian.
If you sample utter silence with the CD method, you still get exactly the
same amount of data as you would sampling a Grateful Dead song of the same
length. It would be nice if you only had to transmit sound data only when
there was actual sound, since silence is the default output. That way you
could make the most of a limited or fixed data rate without sacrificing
quality. If your link is capable of only 100 kbps, you could send 100,000
bits in one second that may expand to ten seconds of silence followed by two
seconds of brilliantly reproduced sound. That way, when the decoder is
playing out those twelve seconds of music, your transmission system is busy
sending the next 1,200,000 bits of encoded information.
MP3, MP4, AC3, and other more advanced encoding schemes depart from the
plodding, "dumb" take-a-fixed-sample-every-nth-of-a-second method and use a
variable sampling rate coupled with high-level mathematical ways of
approximating the shapes of sound waveforms. So where the CD method dumbly
sends a sequence of numbers representing a climbing waveform: 4, 8, 12, 30,
70, 118, 200; the newer methods might simply record a digital shorthand that
says, "in the output, generate a geometrically-ramped signal from 4 to 200
over 0.001 second", and that takes fewer bits to describe. Now of course
you don't get exactly the same numbers back out at the other end as you put
in. So the art is to carefully establish those approximations so the
difference between them and the original isn't noticeable.
But that's why MP3 quality is expressed as a bandwith -- so much information
per unit time -- and why CD quality is expressed as a sampling
rate/resolution. They are completely different *methods* of representing
sound in digital form and so they can't be directly compared. Obviously for
low transmission speeds the adaptive methods like MP3 have to rely more and
more on approximations that can be expressed in shorthand, and have to
extend those shorthands over longer ranges of input data. But the notion
behind 128 kbps is, "We have 128,000 bits per second of achievable
bandwidth; let's make the most of it by adapting our sampling strategy to
that ceiling."
MPEG compression methods can take into account things like channel coherency
and frequency separation issues. Low frequencies are non-directional, so
you can't tell whether they come from the left or right channel. Thus you
don't need to encode a rumbling bass on both the left and right. And in
most recordings, there isn't a lot of difference between the left and right
channels. So they can introduce the notion of a "common" data stream that
represents the common left-right agnostic information and then smaller data
streams that represent only what's different about the left or right
channel.
You can tune each method to produce sound that is fundamentally
indistinguishable in quality from each other, or from a high-quality analog
recording. So saying that MP3s are inherently "better" or "worse" isn't
really addressing the question. You can make CD-type encoding bad (like the
telephone does) by lowering the bitrate and the sample resolution. You can
make MP3 sound very good by increasing the raw bitrate available to it. But
perceived quality being equal, MP3 makes more efficient use of the available
bitrate.
If you wanted to compare the two as bitrates, a 192 Kbps MP3 will sound as
good as a CD for all but the most sensitive listeners, but the MP3 will
require only 192,000 bits per second of storage and transmission space, but
the CD will require about 1,400,000 bits per second of storage and
transmission space. Not quite, but nearly and order of magnitude
improvement in bandwidth usage.
There is actually a tie-in to woodworking here, so it's not as off-topic as
it seems.
Say you want to duplicate a contour in some piece -- say an old crown
molding. You can follow a fairly straightforward but tedious method of
taking the cross section at intervals and establishing the relative position
of all the points along the profile curve at small intervals, relative to
some reference. We have contour gauges that do this. So your "data set"
for that molding is a set of contour gauge tracings at intervals along the
length of the piece.
But a smarter method might be to note that the molding is an extrusion, so
you only have to sample one cross section that applies to the whole length.
Or at worst, the molding might be a repeating pattern, so you only have to
sample the pattern at intervals and then just specify that the pattern is to
be repeated as needed. Instead of a contour gauge that blindly collects the
same amount of data each time it is used, you might note instead that the
contour is composed of a circular arc (of a certain radius and center point,
with certain angular end points) followed by a line segment (of two end
points), and so forth. So your record of the contour is a high-level
description of the geometry, not a lengthy collection of raw points in space
(i.e., the settings of each pin in the contour gauge). That might actually
come in handy later as you're making the molding plane blade or selecting
router bits. You might have a router bit that cuts that specific circular
arc or line segment.
The point is that your description taken by the second method -- while more
complicated to obtain and possibly to reproduce than simple contour gauge
tracings -- is more concise and may boil down to standard tool crib
equipment. Where that's important, you have an advantage.
--Jay
(who used to program MPEG satellite systems for a living)
"Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
|
|
| Very well done, Jay! ... you obviously don't have the same number of
tenons
| (obww) to cut that I do before going back to the studio this evening. :)
Thanks; I'm glad you appreciated it. Fortunately (or unfortunately as your
perspective suggests) I mess with digital data streams during the day as my
profession and relegate woodworking to evenings and weekends. But being
also a musician and audiophile, these topics interest me.
--Jay
On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 12:11:35 -0600, "Jay Windley"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>--Jay
>(who used to program MPEG satellite systems for a living)
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude! So how do I hack my system so I can get all
the porno channels??? Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude! :)
"Jay Windley" wrote in message
>
> "Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> |
> | In the world of digital audio they are two different things. What
follows
> is
> | purposely a _very_ simplified explanation, so if some dipshit wants to
> get
> | anal, GFY in advance:
>
> Noted. I stand F in advance.
>
> | A CD is 16 bit resolution, a standard mp3 is 128 mbps
>
> As you noted, two very different things. What follows is a less
simplified
> explanation, meant neither to upstage, correct, nor to annoy Swingman.
>
> Digitization of sound in the simplest case, as you noted, is a matter of
> taking a certain number of samples every second and representing each
sample
> as a number that describes the amplitude of the sound at that instant.
<snip of informative stuff>
Very well done, Jay! ... you obviously don't have the same number of tenons
(obww) to cut that I do before going back to the studio this evening. :)
--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/04/04
On Wed, 13 Oct 2004 09:47:28 +0000, Mike Marlow wrote:
>
> "Andrew Barss" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>
>> Well, the sampling rate for a typical MP3 is about one one-hundredth of
>> that for a CD. So, go with MP3s if you like really degraded sound.
>>
>>
> Precisely. Noticeably degraded sound.
And a patent-encumbered format as well. Stick with the shiny silver discs
for your master copy and use Ogg Vorbis for portability.
--
Joe Wells
>And a patent-encumbered format as well. Stick with the shiny silver discs
>for your master copy and use Ogg Vorbis for portability.
How is it encumbered? There are at least a dozen "rippers" and hundreds of
players.
If you like shuffling fragile pieces of plastic, you stick with the silver
disks, records, cassettes or even your 8-tracks. They will be collector items
some day ... assuming they don't succome to the ravages of time.
I guess the world needs coasters too.
On Thu, 14 Oct 2004 04:21:01 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Barss
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
>:>And a patent-encumbered format as well. Stick with the shiny silver discs
>:>for your master copy and use Ogg Vorbis for portability.
>
>: How is it encumbered? There are at least a dozen "rippers" and hundreds of
>: players.
>: If you like shuffling fragile pieces of plastic, you stick with the silver
>: disks, records, cassettes or even your 8-tracks.
>
>
>Um, your MP3s are recorded to a hard drive (in your computer or
>your iPod). Hard drives are fragile too.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
Back up your data.
>
>
>
>
> They will be collector items
>: some day ... assuming they don't succome to the ravages of time.
>: I guess the world needs coasters too.
>
>
>Like hosed hard drive platters?
>
> -- Andy Barss
oh yeah, don't forget to Back up your data.
>oh yeah, don't forget to Back up your data.
That is one major advantage of PC based players on a network. It is very easy
to have lots of copies spinning.
The reality is I also keep the stuff on SCSI drives that are not installed in
the systems, a holdover from before I got the network running. I still have
SCSI cables hanging out the back of my players. The drives are dirt cheap. I
use them like diskettes..
I have been burned once. Never again.
Greg <[email protected]> wrote:
:>And a patent-encumbered format as well. Stick with the shiny silver discs
:>for your master copy and use Ogg Vorbis for portability.
: How is it encumbered? There are at least a dozen "rippers" and hundreds of
: players.
: If you like shuffling fragile pieces of plastic, you stick with the silver
: disks, records, cassettes or even your 8-tracks.
Um, your MP3s are recorded to a hard drive (in your computer or
your iPod). Hard drives are fragile too.
They will be collector items
: some day ... assuming they don't succome to the ravages of time.
: I guess the world needs coasters too.
Like hosed hard drive platters?
-- Andy Barss
>Um, your MP3s are recorded to a hard drive (in your computer or
>your iPod). Hard drives are fragile too.
You don't have to handle the hard drive. They are not really that fragile
either. The MP3 player in my garage survived a fire that melted PVC pipes and
the one in my car sits in the Florida sun all day.
On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 09:50:05 -0700, Larry Blanchard
<[email protected]> wrote:
>In article <[email protected]>,
>[email protected] says...
>> >Yep. Still buy good ones at estate sales too. For fifty cents it's
>> >hard to resist stuff I like. One of my many tasks in the future will be
>> >to copy them to CDs - if I live long enough :-).
>>
>> Skip a step and rip them straight to MP3s. CD is going to be as dead as the 8
>> track in a few years.
>>
>OK, so I don't keep up :-). I thought MP3 was a recording technique.
>You're telling me it's a separate and distinct medium? I guess I'll
>have to do a google.
MP3 is a compression protocol. it's essentially the audio channel of
an MPEG video file.
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 16:06:56 GMT, patrick conroy
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Speaking of LP's - anyone else still shlepping theirs around?
Friend of mine has a record label. He signs up bands (biggish names
too) that already have CD deals and presses big black grooved things
for the audiophile market. It's not a big market, but it's still
there.
--
Smert' spamionam
I've still got over 300 of them. My old Pioneer turney thing still
pluggin along too!
patrick conroy wrote:
> On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 00:38:18 GMT, Unisaw A100 <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> >album (a CD to allayouse dilettantes) and check out his
> >first name.
>
> Oops! Mea culpa on that one t(w)o(o).
>
> Speaking of LP's - anyone else still shlepping theirs around?
> I finally worked through my issues and unloaded my last box.
> Turntable too.
> Stanton 681EEE stylus.
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 00:38:18 GMT, Unisaw A100 <[email protected]>
wrote:
>Larry Jacks wrote:
>>Um, OK. Erm...why, Sir Jeffrey?
>
>
>
>I think he's maybe suggesting you go out and buy a Hendrix
>album (a CD to allayouse dilettantes) and check out his
>first name.
>
>UA100
Jimi said, quoting Zimmerman,:
There must be some kind of way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
Theres too much confusion
I cant get no relief
Businessman they drink my wine
Plow men dig my earth
None will level on the line
Nobody of it is worth
Hey hey
No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke but uh
But you and I weve been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hours getting late
Hey
Hey
All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Bare-foot servants to, but huh
Outside in the cold distance
A wild cat did growl
Two riders were approachin
And the wind began to howl
Hey
Oh
All along the watchtower
Hear you sing around the watch
Gotta beware gotta beware I will
Yeah
Ooh baby
All along the watchtower
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" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 00:38:18 GMT, Unisaw A100 <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>Larry Jacks wrote:
>>>Um, OK. Erm...why, Sir Jeffrey?
>>
>>
>>
>>I think he's maybe suggesting you go out and buy a Hendrix
>>album (a CD to allayouse dilettantes) and check out his
>>first name.
>>
>>UA100
>
>
> Jimi said, quoting Zimmerman,:
>
> There must be some kind of way out of here
> Said the joker to the thief
> There's too much confusion
> I can't get no relief
> Businessman they drink my wine
> Plow men dig my earth
> None will level on the line
> Nobody of it is worth
> Hey hey
>
> No reason to get excited
> The thief he kindly spoke
> There are many here among us
> Who feel that life is but a joke but uh
> But you and I we've been through that
> And this is not our fate
> So let us not talk falsely now
> The hour's getting late
> Hey
>
> Hey
>
> All along the watchtower
> Princes kept the view
> While all the women came and went
> Bare-foot servants to, but huh
> Outside in the cold distance
> A wild cat did growl
> Two riders were approachin'
> And the wind began to howl
> Hey
> Oh
> All along the watchtower
> Hear you sing around the watch
> Gotta beware gotta beware I will
> Yeah
> Ooh baby
> All along the watchtower
Yeah, and Longfellow's spinning like a top in his grave. Gotta be the worst
lyrics since doo wop.
Bob
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 16:06:56 GMT, patrick conroy
<[email protected]> calmly ranted:
>On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 00:38:18 GMT, Unisaw A100 <[email protected]>
>wrote:
>
>>album (a CD to allayouse dilettantes) and check out his
>>first name.
>
>Oops! Mea culpa on that one t(w)o(o).
>
>Speaking of LP's - anyone else still shlepping theirs around?
>I finally worked through my issues and unloaded my last box.
>Turntable too.
>Stanton 681EEE stylus.
Guilty as charged. I just brought my 100 LPs, Technics SL-DD2 t-table
and Audio Technica DR300E stylus 900 miles north to Oregon 3 years
ago. The first album on: King Crimson "In the Court of the Crimson
King" blasting "21st Century Schizoid Man" through the old Bose 501s.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Life is full of little surprises. * Comprehensive Website Development
--Pandora * http://www.diversify.com
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 00:38:18 GMT, Unisaw A100 <[email protected]>
wrote:
>album (a CD to allayouse dilettantes) and check out his
>first name.
Oops! Mea culpa on that one t(w)o(o).
Speaking of LP's - anyone else still shlepping theirs around?
I finally worked through my issues and unloaded my last box.
Turntable too.
Stanton 681EEE stylus.
"Tom Watson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> 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
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 00:28:49 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]>
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
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 20:03:10 -0400, Tom Watson <[email protected]>
wrote:
>On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 15:58:57 -0400, dale austin <[email protected]>
>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
In article <[email protected]>, Tom Watson <[email protected]> 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 shitting 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.
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 03:47:17 GMT, [email protected] (Doug Miller)
scribbled:
>In article <[email protected]>, Tom Watson <[email protected]> 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 shitting 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
"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:1097293011.Rh+n1k/i6qZ8D+HBQfZvrw@teranews...
> On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 13:01:31 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>Hubris it is. Whether it is rooted in ego gratification or a sense of
>>being
>>lost in a conformist nation is a nice discussion in itself. Someone made
>>the
>>undeniable point to me that people have a right to build whatever they
>>want.
>>(He did not say "can afford.") Granted, but personal rights are not the
>>issue. Rather, where is the responsibility? Where is the very conservative
>>urge to not waste, to preserve, to "conserve?" My brother-in-law built a
>>3,600 sq ft. "retirement" home that is exactly twice the size of his
>>previous one, replete with pool and waterfall, 10 foot ceilings and video
>>theater. It's sad to think of all the good that might have been done with
>>just the money wasted in that home.
>>
>>Bob
>>
>
> Why do you view something that someone has done with their own resources
> for their satisfaction as money wasted and "not doing good?" Certainly
> the people building the house benefited from its construction -- it
> provided money and jobs.
As would the construction of an appropriately-scaled home.
Those supplying water and fuel will benefit as
> will those who provide maintenance and upkeep or who provide the supplies
> for those activities.
As would the construction of an appropriately scaled home.
> It seems more Hubris to place oneself in judgement of what another does
> with their resources and judging "all the good that might have been done
> with just the money wasted ... "
The individual who built that McMansion has a sister who was fired for no
cause just before her husband contracted
the most vicious form of cancer. Part of his arm was cut out and he can't
work any more at his trade. Another sister's husband lost his career after
he had a stroke and couldn't return to his job. She works two jobs--at
59--to keep them going.
If he had built the house without the f-ing waterfall, he might have been
able to help them.
It is with great humility that I ask you to butt out of situations with
which you are not concerned, and cease from your own judgments of same.
Bob Schmall
patriarch <<patriarch>[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
> Andy Dingley <[email protected]> wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
>> On Fri, 8 Oct 2004 16:16:22 -0600, "Jay Windley"
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>At the outset I wouldn't have lumped Bauhaus and Imperial Japan
>>>necessarily into compatible categories,
>>
>> That's an accident of history. Germany had relatively little contact
>> with Japan up to WW1, in comparison with Britain, France or the USA.
>> They're not seen as related, compared to someone like FLW who was
>> hugely influenced, but convergent evolution certainly made them
>> compatible.
>
> Didn't FLW do the the big hotel in Tokyo from which MacArthur ran
> post-war Japan?
Correct. Imperial Hotel, Tokyo.
>
> Patriarch
>
Hubris it is. Whether it is rooted in ego gratification or a sense of being
lost in a conformist nation is a nice discussion in itself. Someone made the
undeniable point to me that people have a right to build whatever they want.
(He did not say "can afford.") Granted, but personal rights are not the
issue. Rather, where is the responsibility? Where is the very conservative
urge to not waste, to preserve, to "conserve?" My brother-in-law built a
3,600 sq ft. "retirement" home that is exactly twice the size of his
previous one, replete with pool and waterfall, 10 foot ceilings and video
theater. It's sad to think of all the good that might have been done with
just the money wasted in that home.
Bob
or
"Tom Watson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> What is anathema to me is the concept of "volume space".
>
> The multi-story walk in at the entrance is beyond pretentious and
> bleeds over into the concept of hubris.
>
> These little turds violate the expression of homeliness, that should
> be the core consideration of residential architecture.
>
> They confuse the public expression with the private, and seek to take
> on the trappings of grandiosity that are usually reserved for public
> buildings.
>
> The spaces that they describe as the high percentage of their total
> volume are uninhabitable and are meant to project nothing more than
> the expression of ego.
>
>
> Has there actually been an interesting viewpoint into architecture
> since the beginning of the twentieth century?
>
> The Chrysler Building rocks; the Twin Towers (rip) suck.
>
> Bobby Venturi can push his concept of Post-Modernism as much as he
> wants but the fact is that there is nothing new contained in it. It
> is a dissolution and diminution of elements and ornamentation.
>
> The International Style is nothing more than a reduction of ornament
> to the point of absurdity.
>
> BauHaus is the Corporate Mind and looks like absolute shit.
>
>
> Well, I've spewed my guts on this - have at it.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 12:02:51 -0600, "Jay Windley"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Having grown up in a family of architects my dislike for the McMansion
>>(a.k.a. the Starter Castle) knows few bounds.
>>
>>A good friend of mine owns one -- built as close to the property lines as
>>the building code will allow; rooms sized not so much for comfort and
>>utility as to intimidate and impress.
>>
>>Square footage for its own sake is bad. But that's not to say that lots
>>of
>>square feet aren't useful. Another friend owns a proper mansion built in
>>the late 1800s sitting on several acres (complete with swan pond). While
>>often mistaken for a train station, it does have the quality of being
>>composed of livable, usable spaces properly married to the grounds. And
>>her
>>lifestyle is such that this is an appropriate house for her.
>>
>>What amuses me are those people who pay for such misproportioned and
>>ill-suited surroundings, and then spend the majority of their time in the
>>small, hidden-away spaces that are what they really wanted. Nancy, the
>>owner of the train station, is a wealthy socialite who entertains
>>frequently. The formal living room is a must for her. David, my other
>>friend, is an engineer who does no formal entertaining. His formal living
>>room gathers dust while the social center of his house is back in the
>>great
>>room.
>>
>>Another close friend, Charles, renovated an 1870s farmhouse (with an
>>add-on
>>dating to about 1930) into a perfectly-sized house for two people. It
>>features the proverbial living-room-on-the-right and
>>dining-room-on-the-left
>>with a center staircase going up to the second floor. The second floor is
>>really a unified attic which he has finished out into a spacious home
>>office. The kitchen, bedroom, master bath, patio/pantry and laundry are
>>all
>>on the main floor -- not huge, but big enough. The main floor is perhaps
>>1,500 square feet. The dining room isn't used often, but doubles as the
>>display area for the couple's collectables. No garage. A simple shed in
>>the yard provides the shop and storage area. This is not a spacious
>>house,
>>but it is a very comfortable house that "feels" large in the right places
>>and cozy in the right places.
>>
>>I understand the economical need for "cookie-cutter" designs. Frank Lloyd
>>Wright was a fan of cookie-cutter design, where it would mean that people
>>could get an affordable house that fit all their needs. But where people
>>obviously have the money to spend on a fine home, I fail to see why they
>>apply that toward square footage as opposed to good design and fine
>>workmanship. I see custom-designed homes (sadly, occasionally from
>>architects who are friends of mine) that are monstrosities of the false
>>gables, cheep veneers, and other features that characterize the McMansion.
>>The baronial style is fine as long as you are willing to apply the full
>>baronial aesthetic to it.
>>
>>Nothing irritates me more than mixing design idioms, or applying the
>>ornaments from a certain style without attention paid to the
>>organizational
>>aesthetic in which those details are supposed to be applied. A plethora
>>of
>>false gables doth not a mansion make. Would you mix the fruit cup, the
>>salad, the steak, the potatoes, and the cheesecake into one bucket?
>>
>>How much more satisfying to pay an architect a fair fee to design a house
>>that fits you and your lifestyle, and who can help you distinguish what
>>you
>>want from what you think you want. How much more satisfying to have 2,000
>>square feet of warm walnut than 8,000 square feet of featureless Sheetrock
>>painted in Sherwin-Williams Off-White no. 8263 chalk-based latex.
>>
>>Perhaps the most telling episode in this state of affairs is David's
>>confession that he spent several minutes one evening working the key in
>>his
>>front door and ringing the bell, only to find out he was attempting to
>>enter
>>the house one street over from his that happened to be fundamentally
>>indistinguishable from his own. So much money, so little value.
>>
>>--Jay
>
> 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" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> 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.
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 shitting 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
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.
patrick conroy <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
> 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
[email protected] (Mutt) wrote in
news:[email protected]:
<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
"Edwin Pawlowski" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
>
> 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!
The problem I have is now trying to reconcile the notion of "modest home
with a grand shop". Plus a "large quilting studio" for LOML.
You see where the problem lies? A 24x40 shop is wretched excess for most
of my acquaintances, whereas a swimming pool and a 4500 sq ft home is
somehow "appropriate".
Patriarch
"Bob Schmall" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
> Adequate room for the production of any useful goods is not a waste. A
> monstrous home produces nothing--it only absorbs.
>
Aye, there's the rub: useful goods. This is a hobby for me. If I took
money for what I do, I'd have tax and insurance consequences I'd rather not
consider.
So substitute "large boat" for "large shop", on the scale of social good.
Patriarch
Larry Jaques <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
<snip>
>> I kind of understand where you are coming from, in my opinion, they
>>stopped writing music in about 1850 or so and it had been in decline
>>from the late 1780's or so until then with only a few brilliant
>>exceptions.
>
> Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn? Yeah, I agree. <bseg>
>
Well, Lyle Lovett is often amusing. If it just weren't all about Texas! ;-)
> I think Tom and you might like "The Not-So-Big House" by Sarah
> Susanka if you haven't already been introduced to it or her.
Amen to this as well.
Patriarch
Andy Dingley <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:
> On Fri, 8 Oct 2004 16:16:22 -0600, "Jay Windley"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>At the outset I wouldn't have lumped Bauhaus and Imperial Japan
>>necessarily into compatible categories,
>
> That's an accident of history. Germany had relatively little contact
> with Japan up to WW1, in comparison with Britain, France or the USA.
> They're not seen as related, compared to someone like FLW who was
> hugely influenced, but convergent evolution certainly made them
> compatible.
Didn't FLW do the the big hotel in Tokyo from which MacArthur ran post-war
Japan?
Patriarch
Tom Watson <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 20:37:42 -0700, Mark & Juanita
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> > Why do you view something that someone has done with their own resources
> >for their satisfaction as money wasted and "not doing good?" Certainly
> >the people building the house benefited from its construction -- it
> >provided money and jobs. Those supplying water and fuel will benefit as
> >will those who provide maintenance and upkeep or who provide the supplies
> >for those activities.
> >
> > It seems more Hubris to place oneself in judgement of what another does
> >with their resources and judging "all the good that might have been done
> >with just the money wasted ... "
>
>
>
> "Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on
> simplicity."
>
>
>
> "[Socrates] There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the
> arts.
>
> [Adeimantus] What are they?
>
> [Socrates] Wealth, I said, and poverty.
>
> [Adeimantus] How do they act?
>
> [Socrates] The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich, will
> he, think you, any longer take the same pains with his art?
>
> [Adeimantus] Certainly not.
>
> [Socrates] He will grow more and more indolent and careless?
>
> [Adeimantus] Very true.
>
> [Socrates] And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter?
>
> [Adeimantus] Yes; he greatly deteriorates.
>
> [Socrates] But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot
> provide himself with tools or instruments, he will not work equally
> well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work
> equally well.
>
> [Adeimantus] Certainly not.
>
> [Socrates] Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth,
> workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate?
>
> [Adeimantus] That is evident.
>
> [Socrates] Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against
> which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the
> city unobserved.
>
> [Adeimantus] What evils?
>
> [Socrates] Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of
> luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and
> both of discontent."
>
> Plato, The Republic, Book IV.
>
>
>
> Regards,
> Tom.
Thanks, Tom, for the reminder that these issues have been with us a
long, long time; and for the example of a disciplined mind, applied
with insight, to the question of "the good life".
The common and civil element in our choices--the realm of
responsibility and ethics--is missing in the gauntly individualist
"It's mine and I'll do what I want", and your quote describes well a
consequence of that loss.
No age is free from schlock, but we are building/buying homes (and
other structures) with little (or no) regard for the future or current
world. Those large Victorians housed large families (so did the
hovels), and most of the country still farmed. Our grandchildren will
curse our choices.
The one saving grace might be the shrinking of the middle class,
thanks in part to the vast difference in wealth creation and
distribution now underway. (We can thank GW and the tax "cut" for
some of this...damn, I think I just argued the "cut" was a good
thing.) ;-)
Dan
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 20:37:42 -0700, Mark & Juanita
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Why do you view something that someone has done with their own resources
>for their satisfaction as money wasted and "not doing good?" Certainly
>the people building the house benefited from its construction -- it
>provided money and jobs. Those supplying water and fuel will benefit as
>will those who provide maintenance and upkeep or who provide the supplies
>for those activities.
>
> It seems more Hubris to place oneself in judgement of what another does
>with their resources and judging "all the good that might have been done
>with just the money wasted ... "
"Beauty of style and harmony and grace and good rhythm depend on
simplicity."
"[Socrates] There seem to be two causes of the deterioration of the
arts.
[Adeimantus] What are they?
[Socrates] Wealth, I said, and poverty.
[Adeimantus] How do they act?
[Socrates] The process is as follows: When a potter becomes rich, will
he, think you, any longer take the same pains with his art?
[Adeimantus] Certainly not.
[Socrates] He will grow more and more indolent and careless?
[Adeimantus] Very true.
[Socrates] And the result will be that he becomes a worse potter?
[Adeimantus] Yes; he greatly deteriorates.
[Socrates] But, on the other hand, if he has no money, and cannot
provide himself with tools or instruments, he will not work equally
well himself, nor will he teach his sons or apprentices to work
equally well.
[Adeimantus] Certainly not.
[Socrates] Then, under the influence either of poverty or of wealth,
workmen and their work are equally liable to degenerate?
[Adeimantus] That is evident.
[Socrates] Here, then, is a discovery of new evils, I said, against
which the guardians will have to watch, or they will creep into the
city unobserved.
[Adeimantus] What evils?
[Socrates] Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of
luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and
both of discontent."
Plato, The Republic, Book IV.
Regards,
Tom.
"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston
Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1
On Fri, 8 Oct 2004 16:16:22 -0600, "Jay Windley"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
>Many years ago, one of my first design jobs was at Herman Miller. We spent
>a lot of time fuming over the fact that Laz-E-Boy outsold us ten to one.
>But just because the market favors something doesn't make it objectively
>good.
Herman Miller - very nice.
My father sold *nice* furniture down in the Merchandise Mart for
years. As such, I grew accustomed to liking/appreciating such items as
Rowland's 40/4 in the den, a Corbusier or a Wassily in the living room
or a Breuer in the kitchen.
But I think your point about the consistency of a design - any theme -
is the noteworthy point.
I live in a McMansion - it suits our family needs in this stage of our
life. If I win the lottery and have enough money to afford anything,
the first thing I'll do is hire an architect then build and furnish a
house that suits my style.
Interesting reflection - is that I wouldn't do this without an
architect, but I'd likely not hire an interior designer. Hmmm. A
little hypocrisy I guess.
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 15:28:20 GMT, patriarch
<<patriarch>[email protected]> wrote:
>The problem I have is now trying to reconcile the notion of "modest home
>with a grand shop". Plus a "large quilting studio" for LOML.
>
>You see where the problem lies? A 24x40 shop is wretched excess for most
>of my acquaintances, whereas a swimming pool and a 4500 sq ft home is
>somehow "appropriate".
>
>Patriarch
yep.
I'd guess I could fit my household stuff adequately in about 600 sq.
ft. at this point I'd have to get rid of some stuff, but it's all junk
anyway ; ^ )
I have a 1600 sq. ft. house, an 840 sq. ft. shop on 1/3 acre of land-
and I live alone. I'd much rather have those footages reversed....
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.
>
> 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
That's a beautiful place, and a wonderful website as well.
Apropros to the thread in general: If you've ever flown into the
Dallas/Forth Worth airport, you've probably seen the Texas version of
the McMansion as you began your approach. The only difference being
that in Texas each one has a swimming pool.
Chuck Vance
In article <[email protected]>,
Larry Jaques <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> writes:
>>"'Cuse me! While I kiss this guy!"
> Jimmy's rolling over in his grave with that one.
> "Kiss the sky", dufus.
I'll remember this post the next time you piss and moan
about someone spelling *your* name incorrectly, Larry.
--
Jeff Thunder
Dept. of Mathematical Sciences
Northern Illinois Univ.
jthunder at math dot niu dot edu
"Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
|
| Specifically in the key of D ... worn out and overplayed...
Ugh, yes. But you can sing "Jolly Old St. Nicholas" to it -- same chord
progression. Try it some time.
--Jay
Having grown up in a family of architects my dislike for the McMansion
(a.k.a. the Starter Castle) knows few bounds.
A good friend of mine owns one -- built as close to the property lines as
the building code will allow; rooms sized not so much for comfort and
utility as to intimidate and impress.
Square footage for its own sake is bad. But that's not to say that lots of
square feet aren't useful. Another friend owns a proper mansion built in
the late 1800s sitting on several acres (complete with swan pond). While
often mistaken for a train station, it does have the quality of being
composed of livable, usable spaces properly married to the grounds. And her
lifestyle is such that this is an appropriate house for her.
What amuses me are those people who pay for such misproportioned and
ill-suited surroundings, and then spend the majority of their time in the
small, hidden-away spaces that are what they really wanted. Nancy, the
owner of the train station, is a wealthy socialite who entertains
frequently. The formal living room is a must for her. David, my other
friend, is an engineer who does no formal entertaining. His formal living
room gathers dust while the social center of his house is back in the great
room.
Another close friend, Charles, renovated an 1870s farmhouse (with an add-on
dating to about 1930) into a perfectly-sized house for two people. It
features the proverbial living-room-on-the-right and dining-room-on-the-left
with a center staircase going up to the second floor. The second floor is
really a unified attic which he has finished out into a spacious home
office. The kitchen, bedroom, master bath, patio/pantry and laundry are all
on the main floor -- not huge, but big enough. The main floor is perhaps
1,500 square feet. The dining room isn't used often, but doubles as the
display area for the couple's collectables. No garage. A simple shed in
the yard provides the shop and storage area. This is not a spacious house,
but it is a very comfortable house that "feels" large in the right places
and cozy in the right places.
I understand the economical need for "cookie-cutter" designs. Frank Lloyd
Wright was a fan of cookie-cutter design, where it would mean that people
could get an affordable house that fit all their needs. But where people
obviously have the money to spend on a fine home, I fail to see why they
apply that toward square footage as opposed to good design and fine
workmanship. I see custom-designed homes (sadly, occasionally from
architects who are friends of mine) that are monstrosities of the false
gables, cheep veneers, and other features that characterize the McMansion.
The baronial style is fine as long as you are willing to apply the full
baronial aesthetic to it.
Nothing irritates me more than mixing design idioms, or applying the
ornaments from a certain style without attention paid to the organizational
aesthetic in which those details are supposed to be applied. A plethora of
false gables doth not a mansion make. Would you mix the fruit cup, the
salad, the steak, the potatoes, and the cheesecake into one bucket?
How much more satisfying to pay an architect a fair fee to design a house
that fits you and your lifestyle, and who can help you distinguish what you
want from what you think you want. How much more satisfying to have 2,000
square feet of warm walnut than 8,000 square feet of featureless Sheetrock
painted in Sherwin-Williams Off-White no. 8263 chalk-based latex.
Perhaps the most telling episode in this state of affairs is David's
confession that he spent several minutes one evening working the key in his
front door and ringing the bell, only to find out he was attempting to enter
the house one street over from his that happened to be fundamentally
indistinguishable from his own. So much money, so little value.
--Jay
"Rick Cook" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
|
| Because the people they're trying to impress wouldn't know good
| design and fine workmanship if it ran out from under the front
| porch and bit them on the leg.
That's really too bad.
| Depends on what you're trying to do. My wife and I occasionally
| play the 'when we win the lottery' game where we design our ideal
| house.
Yes, I do that too.
Obviously you have to stay within your means on any project, and that means
trade-offs. At least with me there's always a difference between what I
want and what I can afford. The band saw I really want isn't the band saw I
can afford. Which is okay too, in a way, because the band saw I really want
would only fit in the shop I really want, which again isn't the shop I can
afford.
I suppose we all have our own ideas about what constitutes "nice things".
--Jay
"patrick conroy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
|
| Taste is - well subject to one's taste.
Agreed. If someone's idea of Shangri-la is Egyptian columns with Victorian
gingerbread trim and Arts & Crafts furniture, then more power to them.
He'll be happy, and someone will stay in business by giving it to him.
But let's go back to my friend Charles. His house -- which I consider
reasonably well appointed -- is decorated in a style that does not
particularly appeal to me. But it is style-consistent and appropriate in
both organization and detail. So for me there's a hierarchy of design
appreciation:
1. "I like that; it's really neat."
2. "I don't like it, but I can see where a lot of other people would."
3. "I don't see how anyone could like that."
The difference between 1 and 2 for me is fairly small.
A lot of people look at Krenov cabinets and say, "Ew, why would I want
something like that in my living room? The legs aren't even straight." But
the smart ones can say, "Hey, that's some great inlay there," or "Look at
what he did with the grain on that drawer; I'll bet I could do that with a
clock face."
You have to avoid the opposite extreme and try not to be a Style Nazi. Some
styles have elements that mix well with other styles. A guy two doors down
from me built a Mies van der Rohe wannabe house and put a Japanese garden in
back. At the outset I wouldn't have lumped Bauhaus and Imperial Japan
necessarily into compatible categories, but the result is brilliant.
Look at the Louvre. Controversial as it seems, the Pei pyramid is generally
seen as harmonious with the rest of the architecture even though it's as
different from it as it can possibly be.
But with some designs you can easily get the idea that some particular
feature or detail was chosen not because it was stylistically appropriate,
but because it was the cheapest thing in the catalogue that month. You
don't build a grandfather clock case and put in a modernistic clock face and
hands just because they're cheaper than the baroque ones. That's not an
adventurous mixing of style; that's just being cheap and half-assed.
If I thought some of the McMansion architecture was based on adventures in
style, I'd have less disdain for it. But when it's so apparently just
providing the semblance of elegance it's not very appealing to me. It's one
thing to create a monstrosity to order. It's another thing to create a
monstrosity out of laziness or cheapness and try to convince people it's
what everyone needs.
Many years ago, one of my first design jobs was at Herman Miller. We spent
a lot of time fuming over the fact that Laz-E-Boy outsold us ten to one.
But just because the market favors something doesn't make it objectively
good.
--Jay
"Tom Watson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
|
| Has there actually been an interesting viewpoint into architecture
| since the beginning of the twentieth century?
Sure. A few people have mentioned some individual architects. Let me throw
in Frank Gehry. People either love his stuff or they hate it.
You can point to Luxor or Chartres or the Mormon tabernacle and say that
it's such great, distinctive architecture from the past. But you have to
also keep in mind that stuff from the past is here in the present because it
survived, and it survived because enough people deemed it worthy to survive.
The crap architecture that surely must have been around back in those times
too didn't survive because it was crap.
But here we sit in modern times looking at both the crap and the cream of
our time. The McMansions of today hopefully won't survive because they'll
be properly deemed ephemeral and unexemplary, or because they'll just fall
apart under their own crapulence. But hopefully the cream of the 20th and
21st centuries will persist.
--Jay
Jay Windley wrote:
>
> "Tom Watson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> |
> | Has there actually been an interesting viewpoint into architecture
> | since the beginning of the twentieth century?
>
> Sure. A few people have mentioned some individual architects. Let me
> throw
> in Frank Gehry. People either love his stuff or they hate it.
>
> You can point to Luxor or Chartres or the Mormon tabernacle and say that
> it's such great, distinctive architecture from the past. But you have to
> also keep in mind that stuff from the past is here in the present because
> it survived, and it survived because enough people deemed it worthy to
> survive.
Or because it was so massive and strongly built that pulling it down was
more effort than it was worth.
> The crap architecture that surely must have been around back in
> those times too didn't survive because it was crap.
>
> But here we sit in modern times looking at both the crap and the cream of
> our time. The McMansions of today hopefully won't survive because they'll
> be properly deemed ephemeral and unexemplary, or because they'll just fall
> apart under their own crapulence. But hopefully the cream of the 20th and
> 21st centuries will persist.
>
> --Jay
--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:1097292536.fTw3BkRJXwTtU0oh+FMEoA@teranews...
|
| If people are acquiring these kinds of homes because that is
| what those people consider "nice things", then who are any of
| us to denigrate that?
We shouldn't. But what if people are told that a huge, poorly designed
house is a "nice thing" by the nice man who wants to sell you one, and we
buy because that's all that's on the market, and we don't want to go to the
hassle of getting what we really want?
There are two kinds of people in the world in this respect: those who go
back to the counter at the fast-food place and demand that they put the
cheese on it like they asked for, and those who rationalize the cook's
mistake and say "I really didn't want the cheese anyway."
If we look around at people in our peer group and see that they all own
McMansions, might we get the impression that that's what we're "supposed" to
have, and that not having it is a form of deprivation?
Yes, anything done for the wrong reasons will fundamentally disappoint. But
our society seems inching ever more toward doing everything for the wrong
reasons. We don't buy exciting furniture because it's "weird" or "won't
stand up to wear." We buy unexciting houses because anything out of a very
narrow range of "normal" will have "poor resale value."
I guess my feeling here is that it seems that "nice things" are being
systematically defined by a culture looking more toward corporate
consumerism than any sort of appreciation of something according to its
merits. So people continue to buy and build McMansions because they're
repeatedly told by subtle and not-so-subtle means that it's a "nice thing",
and they live in them not ever knowing why they're not satisfied with them.
There's a guy who built a house in my parents' town -- an ugly castle,
complete with battlements and pinnacled towers. He obviously paid someone
an awful lot of money to get what he wanted. It's gawdawful, but it's what
he wanted. I wouldn't live in that thing for a million dollars, nor live
where I could see it. But the owner got what he wanted, and so he's happy.
The last thing I want to do is rain all over that guy's parade. We need
more people like him, if only to continue to buck the trend of
corporate-designed pablum.
--Jay
"patrick conroy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
|
| But I think your point about the consistency of a design
| - any theme - is the noteworthy point.
And I run the risk of being labeled a design snob. But I run the risk of
mixed design abominations myself, simply because I like so many different
things. My father, who used to teach architecture, and my sister, who is an
architect, agree that I missed my calling in life in becoming an engineer.
I think a designer of artistic things needs to have an appreciation for and
a skill in various idioms. Not so that he can mix them, but so that he can
execute any of those idioms with fidelity and skill, and with a proper
amount of satisfaction.
Let's face it, many people have to turn out pablum in order to pay the
bills. If a sturdy oak coffee table with simply routed edges and the
standard two coats of lacquer is what keeps the professionals in business,
then there will always be that. But I worry about the woodworker -- amateur
or professional -- who doesn't at least long to produce solitary masterworks
as a labor of love whether they're commercially viable or not.
| I live in a McMansion - it suits our family needs in this
| stage of our life.
Then you bought the right house. If its appearance pleases you and its
interior serves your needs and its quality is otherwise a good buy for what
you paid, then you have the right house regardless of what I or anyone else
might say.
My quibble with the McMansion concept is summed up as any combination of:
1. A house that's designed by the builder or the builder's architect with
more attention paid to cost-effective building than to utility. I.e., the
ideal size for a room is not necessarily harmonious with standard joist
lengths.
2. A house whose organization and ornament seems more driven by what was on
sale that month or in large lots than in executing favorably any of the
design philosophies to which it alludes. I.e., Victorian gingerbread only
works if it's used copiously, not just in the one dormer that fits the
standard mass-produced gingerbread piece.
3. A house in which design elements are included or scaled inappropriately.
I.e., if your life has never before required a living room that echos, why
the hell do you think it suddenly will?
| Interesting reflection - is that I wouldn't do this without an
| architect, but I'd likely not hire an interior designer. Hmmm. A
| little hypocrisy I guess.
Yes, and I think we're probably all a little hypocritical in this respect to
some extent.
--Jay
In article <[email protected]>,
novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com wrote:
> On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:06:51 GMT, patrick conroy
> <[email protected]> calmly ranted:
>
> >On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:39:31 -0500, "Swingman" <[email protected]> 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.
"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
Adequate room for the production of any useful goods is not a waste. A
monstrous home produces nothing--it only absorbs.
Bob
"patriarch [email protected]>" <<patriarch> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> The problem I have is now trying to reconcile the notion of "modest home
> with a grand shop". Plus a "large quilting studio" for LOML.
>
> You see where the problem lies? A 24x40 shop is wretched excess for most
> of my acquaintances, whereas a swimming pool and a 4500 sq ft home is
> somehow "appropriate".
>
> Patriarch
"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 Thu, 07 Oct 2004 21:32:07 -0700, Mark & Juanita
<[email protected]> calmly ranted:
>On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 22:30:13 -0400, Tom Watson <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>What is anathema to me is the concept of "volume space".
>... snip
>>The Chrysler Building rocks; the Twin Towers (rip) suck.
>>
>>Bobby Venturi can push his concept of Post-Modernism as much as he
>>wants but the fact is that there is nothing new contained in it. It
>>is a dissolution and diminution of elements and ornamentation.
>>
>
> I kind of understand where you are coming from, in my opinion, they
>stopped writing music in about 1850 or so and it had been in decline from
>the late 1780's or so until then with only a few brilliant exceptions.
Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn? Yeah, I agree. <bseg>
> ... so I can see where someone might have the same attitude and
>impression of architectural trends as well.
I think Tom and you might like "The Not-So-Big House" by Sarah
Susanka if you haven't already been introduced to it or her.
She has several books out, but the original was by far her best.
http://www.notsobighouse.com/ ASIN # 1561581305
AFTER you read NSBH, get "Creating the Not So Big House", her
2nd book. They're published by Taunton, BTW.
Her tips: Limit the square footage, make THAT count with detail and
better quality materials, double/triple/re-task rooms for the way you
actually live. If that means doing without a formal living room, so
much the better.
I dislike places with Cathedral ceilings where the floor is 64F
and the roof (2 man-heights above you) is a toasty 90F. It's not
only ugly and uncomfortable, it's inefficient and expensive to
heat/cool. Stickley and the Greenes made their homes with shorter
alcoves for good reason: People like small places, where they feel
more comfortable. Sadly, the vast majority of these idiots in
mega-S/F homes are all uncomfortable most of the time and they
don't realize why. Smaller footage + more/nicer personalization =
much happier occupants of the dwelling.
Here are some of Sarah's articles:
http://www.architectureweek.com/2000/1004/design_1-1.html
http://www.architectureweek.com/2000/0726/design_1-1.html
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/feature/-/95801/ref%3Dad%5Fb%5Fhg%5F2/103-0585145-5535032
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Life is full of little surprises. * Comprehensive Website Development
--Pandora * http://www.diversify.com
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:06:51 GMT, patrick conroy
<[email protected]> calmly ranted:
>On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:39:31 -0500, "Swingman" <[email protected]> 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
What is anathema to me is the concept of "volume space".
The multi-story walk in at the entrance is beyond pretentious and
bleeds over into the concept of hubris.
These little turds violate the expression of homeliness, that should
be the core consideration of residential architecture.
They confuse the public expression with the private, and seek to take
on the trappings of grandiosity that are usually reserved for public
buildings.
The spaces that they describe as the high percentage of their total
volume are uninhabitable and are meant to project nothing more than
the expression of ego.
Has there actually been an interesting viewpoint into architecture
since the beginning of the twentieth century?
The Chrysler Building rocks; the Twin Towers (rip) suck.
Bobby Venturi can push his concept of Post-Modernism as much as he
wants but the fact is that there is nothing new contained in it. It
is a dissolution and diminution of elements and ornamentation.
The International Style is nothing more than a reduction of ornament
to the point of absurdity.
BauHaus is the Corporate Mind and looks like absolute shit.
Well, I've spewed my guts on this - have at it.
On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 12:02:51 -0600, "Jay Windley"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Having grown up in a family of architects my dislike for the McMansion
>(a.k.a. the Starter Castle) knows few bounds.
>
>A good friend of mine owns one -- built as close to the property lines as
>the building code will allow; rooms sized not so much for comfort and
>utility as to intimidate and impress.
>
>Square footage for its own sake is bad. But that's not to say that lots of
>square feet aren't useful. Another friend owns a proper mansion built in
>the late 1800s sitting on several acres (complete with swan pond). While
>often mistaken for a train station, it does have the quality of being
>composed of livable, usable spaces properly married to the grounds. And her
>lifestyle is such that this is an appropriate house for her.
>
>What amuses me are those people who pay for such misproportioned and
>ill-suited surroundings, and then spend the majority of their time in the
>small, hidden-away spaces that are what they really wanted. Nancy, the
>owner of the train station, is a wealthy socialite who entertains
>frequently. The formal living room is a must for her. David, my other
>friend, is an engineer who does no formal entertaining. His formal living
>room gathers dust while the social center of his house is back in the great
>room.
>
>Another close friend, Charles, renovated an 1870s farmhouse (with an add-on
>dating to about 1930) into a perfectly-sized house for two people. It
>features the proverbial living-room-on-the-right and dining-room-on-the-left
>with a center staircase going up to the second floor. The second floor is
>really a unified attic which he has finished out into a spacious home
>office. The kitchen, bedroom, master bath, patio/pantry and laundry are all
>on the main floor -- not huge, but big enough. The main floor is perhaps
>1,500 square feet. The dining room isn't used often, but doubles as the
>display area for the couple's collectables. No garage. A simple shed in
>the yard provides the shop and storage area. This is not a spacious house,
>but it is a very comfortable house that "feels" large in the right places
>and cozy in the right places.
>
>I understand the economical need for "cookie-cutter" designs. Frank Lloyd
>Wright was a fan of cookie-cutter design, where it would mean that people
>could get an affordable house that fit all their needs. But where people
>obviously have the money to spend on a fine home, I fail to see why they
>apply that toward square footage as opposed to good design and fine
>workmanship. I see custom-designed homes (sadly, occasionally from
>architects who are friends of mine) that are monstrosities of the false
>gables, cheep veneers, and other features that characterize the McMansion.
>The baronial style is fine as long as you are willing to apply the full
>baronial aesthetic to it.
>
>Nothing irritates me more than mixing design idioms, or applying the
>ornaments from a certain style without attention paid to the organizational
>aesthetic in which those details are supposed to be applied. A plethora of
>false gables doth not a mansion make. Would you mix the fruit cup, the
>salad, the steak, the potatoes, and the cheesecake into one bucket?
>
>How much more satisfying to pay an architect a fair fee to design a house
>that fits you and your lifestyle, and who can help you distinguish what you
>want from what you think you want. How much more satisfying to have 2,000
>square feet of warm walnut than 8,000 square feet of featureless Sheetrock
>painted in Sherwin-Williams Off-White no. 8263 chalk-based latex.
>
>Perhaps the most telling episode in this state of affairs is David's
>confession that he spent several minutes one evening working the key in his
>front door and ringing the bell, only to find out he was attempting to enter
>the house one street over from his that happened to be fundamentally
>indistinguishable from his own. So much money, so little value.
>
>--Jay
Regards,
Tom.
"People funny. Life a funny thing." Sonny Liston
Thomas J.Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet (real email)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1
On Wed, 06 Oct 2004 01:45:00 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski" <[email protected]>
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. ]
Jay Windley said:
>Many years ago, one of my first design jobs was at Herman Miller. We spent
>a lot of time fuming over the fact that Laz-E-Boy outsold us ten to one.
>But just because the market favors something doesn't make it objectively
>good.
They probably advertised 10 times as much - thereby convincing a
gullible public of their version of the truth. Like politicians. :-\
Greg G.
On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 12:02:51 -0600, "Jay Windley"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Having grown up in a family of architects my dislike for the McMansion
>(a.k.a. the Starter Castle) knows few bounds.
>
>A good friend of mine owns one -- built as close to the property lines as
>the building code will allow; rooms sized not so much for comfort and
>utility as to intimidate and impress.
>
>Square footage for its own sake is bad. But that's not to say that lots of
>square feet aren't useful. Another friend owns a proper mansion built in
>the late 1800s sitting on several acres (complete with swan pond). While
>often mistaken for a train station, it does have the quality of being
>composed of livable, usable spaces properly married to the grounds. And her
>lifestyle is such that this is an appropriate house for her.
>
>What amuses me are those people who pay for such misproportioned and
>ill-suited surroundings, and then spend the majority of their time in the
>small, hidden-away spaces that are what they really wanted. Nancy, the
>owner of the train station, is a wealthy socialite who entertains
>frequently. The formal living room is a must for her. David, my other
>friend, is an engineer who does no formal entertaining. His formal living
>room gathers dust while the social center of his house is back in the great
>room.
>
>Another close friend, Charles, renovated an 1870s farmhouse (with an add-on
>dating to about 1930) into a perfectly-sized house for two people. It
>features the proverbial living-room-on-the-right and dining-room-on-the-left
>with a center staircase going up to the second floor. The second floor is
>really a unified attic which he has finished out into a spacious home
>office. The kitchen, bedroom, master bath, patio/pantry and laundry are all
>on the main floor -- not huge, but big enough. The main floor is perhaps
>1,500 square feet. The dining room isn't used often, but doubles as the
>display area for the couple's collectables. No garage. A simple shed in
>the yard provides the shop and storage area. This is not a spacious house,
>but it is a very comfortable house that "feels" large in the right places
>and cozy in the right places.
>
>I understand the economical need for "cookie-cutter" designs. Frank Lloyd
>Wright was a fan of cookie-cutter design, where it would mean that people
>could get an affordable house that fit all their needs. But where people
>obviously have the money to spend on a fine home, I fail to see why they
>apply that toward square footage as opposed to good design and fine
>workmanship. I see custom-designed homes (sadly, occasionally from
>architects who are friends of mine) that are monstrosities of the false
>gables, cheep veneers, and other features that characterize the McMansion.
>The baronial style is fine as long as you are willing to apply the full
>baronial aesthetic to it.
>
>Nothing irritates me more than mixing design idioms, or applying the
>ornaments from a certain style without attention paid to the organizational
>aesthetic in which those details are supposed to be applied. A plethora of
>false gables doth not a mansion make. Would you mix the fruit cup, the
>salad, the steak, the potatoes, and the cheesecake into one bucket?
>
>How much more satisfying to pay an architect a fair fee to design a house
>that fits you and your lifestyle, and who can help you distinguish what you
>want from what you think you want. How much more satisfying to have 2,000
>square feet of warm walnut than 8,000 square feet of featureless Sheetrock
>painted in Sherwin-Williams Off-White no. 8263 chalk-based latex.
>
>Perhaps the most telling episode in this state of affairs is David's
>confession that he spent several minutes one evening working the key in his
>front door and ringing the bell, only to find out he was attempting to enter
>the house one street over from his that happened to be fundamentally
>indistinguishable from his own. So much money, so little value.
>
>--Jay
I'll blame television.
Americans have come to expect to have their tastes handed to them in
20 second commercials, one after the other. just hand 'em the
highlights... the idea that there could or should be an underlying
body of knowledge is an affront to the instant gratification mindset.
On Tue, 5 Oct 2004 09:39:31 -0500, "Swingman" <[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]>
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."
"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
On Thu, 07 Oct 2004 22:30:13 -0400, Tom Watson <[email protected]>
scribbled:
>
>Has there actually been an interesting viewpoint into architecture
>since the beginning of the twentieth century?
Gaudì?
http://www.op.net/~jmeltzer/gaudi.html
>The Chrysler Building rocks; the Twin Towers (rip) suck.
>
>Bobby Venturi can push his concept of Post-Modernism as much as he
>wants but the fact is that there is nothing new contained in it. It
>is a dissolution and diminution of elements and ornamentation.
>
>The International Style is nothing more than a reduction of ornament
>to the point of absurdity.
>
>BauHaus is the Corporate Mind and looks like absolute shit.
Agreed with the above.
Luigi
Replace "nonet" with "yukonomics" for real email address
www.yukonomics.ca/wooddorking/antifaq.html
www.yukonomics.ca/wooddorking/humour.html
Conan the Librarian wrote:
>
>
> That's a beautiful place, and a wonderful website as well.
>
> Apropros to the thread in general: If you've ever flown into the
> Dallas/Forth Worth airport, you've probably seen the Texas version of
> the McMansion as you began your approach. The only difference being
> that in Texas each one has a swimming pool.
>
>
> Chuck Vance
Thanks. I can take credit for the website, but not the house. I'm just
the most recent in a long line of caretakers. Barring catastrophes,
she'll be standing long after I'm looking up at the universe through six
feet of dirt. On which note-we have a cemetery just up the street a bit
with some 300 Civil War vets, and most of the prior owners of my
house-including George Custer's mother-in-law who owned it for a while.
Dale
On Sat, 09 Oct 2004 12:23:28 GMT, Unisaw A100 <[email protected]>
wrote:
>"To be is to do"--Socrates
>
>"To do is to be"--Sartre
>
>"To be or not to be"--Shakespeare
>
>"Be, do, have"--Hubbard
>
>"Do be do be do"--Sinatra
>
>"Yabba Dabba Dooo"--Flintsone
>
>UA100
"...deep doodoo." - GHWB
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
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.
On Fri, 8 Oct 2004 16:16:22 -0600, "Jay Windley"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>At the outset I wouldn't have lumped Bauhaus and Imperial Japan
>necessarily into compatible categories,
That's an accident of history. Germany had relatively little contact
with Japan up to WW1, in comparison with Britain, France or the USA.
They're not seen as related, compared to someone like FLW who was
hugely influenced, but convergent evolution certainly made them
compatible.
--
Smert' spamionam
On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 23:29:58 GMT, patriarch
<<patriarch>[email protected]> 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 Thu, 07 Oct 2004 22:30:13 -0400, Tom Watson <[email protected]>
wrote:
>The International Style is nothing more than a reduction of ornament
>to the point of absurdity.
>
>BauHaus is the Corporate Mind and looks like absolute shit.
That's because you're in the USA and only got the bad stuff. Mies van
der Rohe period Bauhaus was the degenerate art of a degenerate
society. All the interesting ideas were purged to fit in with <snipped
for Goodwins Law> and later on for Ayn Rand (I always get those two
confused anyway).
Johannes Itter as Corporate Mind ? The guy was as crazy as a Usenet
poster!
For good International style, look at the South Coast of England - De
La Warr pavilion, Burgh Island hotel (watch any BBC Agatha Christie),
any of Lubetkin's work.
--
Smert' spamionam
On 7 Oct 2004 17:16:20 GMT, [email protected] (Jeffrey
Thunder) calmly ranted:
>In article <[email protected]>,
> Larry Jaques <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> writes:
>>>"'Cuse me! While I kiss this guy!"
>> Jimmy's rolling over in his grave with that one.
>> "Kiss the sky", dufus.
>
>I'll remember this post the next time you piss and moan
>about someone spelling *your* name incorrectly, Larry.
Um, OK. Erm...why, Sir Jeffrey?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Life is full of little surprises. * Comprehensive Website Development
--Pandora * http://www.diversify.com
"patrick conroy" <[email protected]> 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.
"Larry Jaques" <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 18:20:36 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]>
> calmly ranted:
>
>>
>>"Tom Watson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
>>> Jimi said, quoting Zimmerman,:
> -snip-
>>> Yeah
>>> Ooh baby
>>> All along the watchtower
>>
>>Yeah, and Longfellow's spinning like a top in his grave. Gotta be the
>>worst
>>lyrics since doo wop.
>
> Thank Bob Dylan for the lyrics and Jimi for the hot licks.
No to little Bobby Zimmerman, yes to the drug-addled,
pick-it-with-your-teeth genius.
My old 501s sounded like crud. They sounded much better after a
recone. No highs, no lows, got to be Bose. That 1977 vintage Sansui
receiver does ok for me.
Larry Jaques <novalidaddress@di\/ersify.com> wrote:
>On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 16:06:56 GMT, patrick conroy
><[email protected]> calmly ranted:
>
>>On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 00:38:18 GMT, Unisaw A100 <[email protected]>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>album (a CD to allayouse dilettantes) and check out his
>>>first name.
>>
>>Oops! Mea culpa on that one t(w)o(o).
>>
>>Speaking of LP's - anyone else still shlepping theirs around?
>>I finally worked through my issues and unloaded my last box.
>>Turntable too.
>>Stanton 681EEE stylus.
>
>Guilty as charged. I just brought my 100 LPs, Technics SL-DD2 t-table
>and Audio Technica DR300E stylus 900 miles north to Oregon 3 years
>ago. The first album on: King Crimson "In the Court of the Crimson
>King" blasting "21st Century Schizoid Man" through the old Bose 501s.
>
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>Life is full of little surprises. * Comprehensive Website Development
> --Pandora * http://www.diversify.com
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 18:20:36 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>Yeah, and Longfellow's spinning like a top in his grave. Gotta be the worst
>lyrics since doo wop.
But Longfellow was a lousy guitarist, even when he wasn't setting fire
to it.
Oh ? You mean _Dylan_ recorded All Along The Watchtower as well as
the real version ?
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 18:20:36 GMT, "Bob Schmall" <[email protected]>
calmly ranted:
>
>"Tom Watson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> Jimi said, quoting Zimmerman,:
-snip-
>> Yeah
>> Ooh baby
>> All along the watchtower
>
>Yeah, and Longfellow's spinning like a top in his grave. Gotta be the worst
>lyrics since doo wop.
Thank Bob Dylan for the lyrics and Jimi for the hot licks.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Life is full of little surprises. * Comprehensive Website Development
--Pandora * http://www.diversify.com
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
[email protected]
http://pages.cthome.net/edhome
"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
On 06 Oct 2004 14:54:53 GMT, Brian Elfert <[email protected]> wrote:
> "Swingman" <[email protected]> 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.