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12 Things to do Instead of Building a McMansion

If you're feeling like building a massive house that blocks out the sun, in order to fit your Hummer and your kids Ashleigheh, Dakota, and Pacifica, here's some handy ways to beat the need to build. Ok, I had to add a couple more.

1. Get on your roof occasionally so you can feel the superiority of looking over the tops of your neighbors' houses.
2. Mirrors can expand the impression of "space" in a room.
3. If you need a bigger master bedroom or bathroom, try renovating and adding onto your house, or losing weight.
4. Go to the devastation of Sondra Dr. in Lakewood and look at the uh, "custom" homes there to remind yourself how much variety and unique character our area has.
5. Enjoy a barbecue in your "yard," which is a piece of grass not seen around McMansions.
6. It takes about 2 years for the formaldehyde and toxic chemicals inherent in a new house to be reduced to safe levels. Cut out the middleman and expose your family to these chemicals.
7. Get a job in Frisco, so you can have a monster house closer to your workplace if you must have one.
8. Take the money you saved in building costs and get a vacation property.
9. Try self-hypnosis. "I do not need 5 bathrooms, 4 bedrooms, a 3 car garage, a wine room, a computer room and a media room."
10. Put bricks in all your side windows, that's pretty much the view you would have in a "luxury enclave" anyway.
11. Set up a sub-woofer in your attic, and a timer kicking in at 7 a.m. that starts a CD playing nail-gun and saw sounds, with an oom-pah music undertone. Strew nails and fast food wrappers in your yard and driveway to achieve the full effect of unregulated construction going on next door.
12. Buy and fix a house. If the house must be knocked down, please build a new one that has a reasonable footprint and doesn't look like a quarry pile.
13. Buy a good plot of land outside of town, build your dream McMansion, and in a few years you'll be able to fly your Lexus AeroCar on the Microsoft/Matsushita AirHighway straight downtown in less than 10 minutes.

posted by Jason English @ 10:57 AM