McMansion Hell

Lately I've been hearing about McMansions quite a lot. It's nothing new, but somehow I hadn't heard the term before now. Excessively large, ugly, useless and poorly made houses are everywhere, but I never truly took the time to understand what makes them so terrible. Thanks to Kate Wagner of the McMansion Hell blog for opening my eyes to a whole new world (albeit hideous) world.

To Better understand what makes a McMansion, we have to define an ideal home. Good architecture should bring together equal parts of beauty, durability, and usefulness. McMansions are none of these. They are constructed with the idea of being assets for the owners and nothing more. The overwhelming problem lurking in the shadows is the fact that these homes are typically a money pit due to the backward construction ideas.

What McMansions do have is size on their side. They also tend to mash many design styles and elements together to birth a sad frankensteined mess. This horrific mixed bag of designs, that some people call home, stems from the fact that everything is made from with only the interior in mind. The exterior of the house is a thought of after the fact. By focusing entirely on the design of the interior spaces, the exterior aesthetics suffer dramatically. 

Another glaring issue with the majority of McMansions is how cookie cutter they are. Because developers are solely focused on their own pockets, craftsmanship is thrown out the window. By mass producing and cutting corners at every corner, McMansions are typically very profitable for the developers. The obvious problem with this is the fact that the homeowner is left with a poorly constructed, ill designed, and less than functional house. To top it all off, the combination of these issues nearly always leads to costly renovations early into the house's lifetime.

This is where WKP comes into play. Each of our homes is handcrafted with care to ensure an ideally built place of living without compromises. We focus our previously acquired knowledge of well designed buildings to create a... well designed home. Whether large or small, WKP homes are purpose built around the three pillars of architecture. Beauty. Durability. Usefulness.