new jersey bonus post: 5 additional, wonderful rooms | McMansionHell New on Patreon: New Jersey Bonus Post (5 additional, “wonderful” rooms!“

It’s always funny to me when new wealth tries to imitate old wealth, but in a very specific way: by trying to reproduce old ways of building that are no longer viable via mass produced building materials and contractors who are better than average but still not quite in the legion of the bespoke. It’s rarely the case that houses are fully “custom” these days – the amalgamation of all the different parts in a new formation is the “customization” at work. As we can see in this example, this is a truth that is often covered up by excessive decorating. This 5 bedroom, 6.5 bathroom house, built in 1997 (shocker) will run you an extremely reasonable $3.5 million big ones, but I say extremely reasonable because it wants to be a $10 million house but doesn’t quite get there - after all, it’s made with drywall. The architectural style is not really anything in particular – though the front entrance would like to recall the Tudors. Really it is trying to emulate an existing pastiche style, namely the eclecticism of the 19th century. It also doesn’t do this well. No stately manor is complete without dueling staircases. Also, I don’t know how to explain it, but every room in this house longs to be a bathroom. Or a powder room. A really big one. It’s probably the floor, and the wallpaper. This is just the appetizer for the main attraction: Jules Verne larping is so rare in McMansion Hell that you have to commend them for trying. I’m kind of obsessed. This room is so important to me. It’s like if an Olin Mills (dating myself here) set was an entire room. A sense of watching someone in one’s own house, performing “dinner.” Also I would slay as the swan knight, I have to say, so I get it. What happened to baskets hanging from the ceiling and powder blue walls and porcelain lined up on the picture rail? I have seen columns terminating into soffits that would make Scamozzi cry. In Big America bathing and lavishing is a spectator sport. Ok, again, the palette of this house is basically The Polar Express mixed with a very bizarre hotel lobby. The chimney hole is sending me because that does appear to be a working chimney. Like, can you see the smoke come out? Who knows! Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to everyone, and I’m especially thankful to the folks who sponsor me on Patreon! If you want to see more scenes from this house, that’s the place to do it! If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams. Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!

Quick PSA: someone on Facebook is apparently impersonating me using an account called “McMansion Hell 2.0” – If you see it, please report! Thanks! Howdy folks! I hope if you were born between 1995 and 2001 you’re ready for some indelible pre-recession vibes because I think this entire house, including the photos have not been touched since that time. This Wake County, NC house, built in 2007, currently boasts a price tag of 1.7 million smackaroos. Its buxom 4 bedrooms and 4.5 baths brings the total size to a completely reasonable and not at all housing-bubble-spurred 5,000 square feet. I know everyone (at least on TikTok) thinks 2007 and goes immediately to the Tuscan theming trend that was super popular at the time (along with lots of other pseudo-euro looks, e.g. “french country” “tudor” etc). In reality, a lot of decor wasn’t particularly themed at all but more “transitional” which is to say, neither contemporary nor super traditional. This can be pulled off (in fact, it’s where the old-school Joanna Gaines excelled) but it’s usually, well, bland. Overwhelmingly neutral. Still, these interiors stir up fond memories of the last few months before mommy was on the phone with the bank crying. I think I’ve seen these red/navy/beige rugs in literally every mid-2000s time capsule house. I want to know where they came from first and how they came to be everywhere. My mom got one from Kirkland’s Home back in the day. I guess the 2010s equivalent would be those fake distressed overdyed rugs. I hate the kitchen bench trend. Literally the most uncomfortable seating imaginable for the house’s most sociable room. You are not at a 19th century soda fountain!!! You are a salesforce employee in Ohio!!! You could take every window treatment in this house and create a sampler. A field guide to dust traps. Before I demanded privacy, my parents had a completely beige spare bedroom. Truly random stuff on the walls. An oversized Monet poster they should have kept tbh. Also putting the rug on the beige carpet here is diabolical. FYI the term “Global Village Coffeehouse” originates with the design historian Evan Collins whose work with the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute!!!! This photo smells like a Yankee Candle. Ok, now onto the last usable photo in the set: No but WHY is the house a different COLOR??????? WHAT????? Alright, I hope you enjoyed this special trip down memory lane! Happy (American) Labor Day Weekend! (Don’t forget that labor is entitled to all it creates!) If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams. Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!

Howdy folks! Today’s McMansion is very special because a) we’re returning to Maryland after a long time and b) because the street this McMansion is on is the same as my name. (It was not named after me.) Hence, it is my personal McMansion, which I guess is somewhat like when people used to by the name rights to stars even though it was pretty much a scam. (Shout out btw to my patron Andros who submitted this house to be roasted live on the McMansion Hell Patreon Livestream) As far as namesake McMansions go, this one is pretty good in the sense that it is high up there on the ol’ McMansion scale. Built in 2011, this psuedo-Georgian bad boy boasts 6 bedrooms and 9.5 baths, all totaling around 12,000 square feet. It’ll run you 2.5 million which, safe to say, is exponentially larger than its namesake’s net worth. Now, 2011 was an anonymous year for home design, lingering in the dead period between the 2008 black hole and 2013 when the market started to actually, finally, steadily recover. As a result a lot of houses from this time basically look like 2000s McMansions but slightly less outrageous in order to quell recession-era shame. I’m going to be so serious here and say that the crown molding in this room is a crime against architecture, a crime against what humankind is able to accomplish with mass produced millwork, and also a general affront to common sense. I hate it so much that the more I look at it the more angry I become and that’s really not healthy for me so, moving on. Actually, aside from the fake 2010s distressed polyester rug the rest of this room is literally, basically Windows 98 themed. I feel like the era of massive, hefty sets of coordinated furniture are over. However, we’re the one’s actually missing out by not wanting this stuff because we will never see furniture made with real wood instead of various shades of MDF or particleboard ever again. This is a top 10 on the scale of “least logical kitchen I’ve ever seen.” It’s as though the designers engineered this kitchen so that whoever’s cooking has to take the most steps humanly possible. Do you ever see a window configuration so obviously made up by window companies in the 1980s that you almost have to hand it to them? You’re literally letting all that warmth from the fire just disappear. But whatever I guess it’s fine since we basically just LARP fire now. Feminism win because women’s spaces are prioritized in a shared area or feminism loss because this is basically the bathroom vanity version of women be shopping? (It’s the latter.) I couldn’t get to all of this house because there were literally over a hundred photos in the listing but there are so many spaces in here that are basically just half-empty voids, and if not that then actually, literally unfinished. It’s giving recession. Anyway, now for the best part: Not only is this the NBA Backrooms but it’s also just a nonsensical basketball court. Tile floors? No lines? Just free balling in the void? Oh, well I bet the rear exterior is totally normal. Not to be all sincere about it but much like yours truly who has waited until the literal last second to post this McMansion, this house really is the epitome of hubris all around. Except the house’s hubris is specific to this moment in time, a time when gas was like $2/gallon. It’s climate hubris. It’s a testimony to just how much energy the top 1% of income earners make compared to the rest of us. I have a single window unit. This house has four air conditioning condensers. That’s before we get to the monoculture, pesticide-dependent lawn or the three car garage or the asphalt driveway or the roof that’ll cost almost as much as the house to replace. We really did think it would all be endless. Oops. If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams. Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!