My latest op-ed for Curbed on making compromises when renovating historic homes!
50 States of McMansion Hell: Texas Part 2
Howdy Y’all! Everyone give me a pat on the back because I finally finished moving to my new place, which I will of course be writing about for Looking Around. Moving gives one time to re-evaluate one’s life, and by re-evaluate I mean ask oneself why one has so much crap, junk, and also more crap.
Speaking of crap: It’s time to return to our Texas Standoff! Reminder: At the end of this post will be a bracket and a link to a Google Form where you will be able to vote on the first round for Worst Texas McMansion!
Montgomery County (House 9): AKA The Columned Catastrophe
TFW u love Big Oil so much u design a house just to waste energy and laugh at the dying earth
Comal County (House 10): AKA Bitches Brew
Instead of cooking Hansel and Gretel in a puny (yet rustic) wood stove, the Witch decided to #upgrade and get a $6,000 Wolf range/stove combo with dual burner action. She lusciously prepares the aftermath on her granite countertops complete with built in #farmhouse sink. Before being cooked and eaten, Hansel and Gretel complemented the witch on her tasteful #subway #tile backsplash!
Kendall County (House 11): AKA The Compound
The only thing I can think of that’s as futile as trying to grow that grass is trying to put together the Ikea furniture you just bought after a day of loading and unloading boxes. But this isn’t about me, is it?
Travis County (House 12): AKA FastFood FanFic
[AU] [T] [Romance] Olive Garden x Taco Bell. It’s 1908, and Olive, an Italian immigrant seeking greener pastures in Southern California has her life turned upside down when she meets the bold, brash, and ambitious Mexican-American boy who helps his family run the taco joint down the street.
[I would like to take the time to apologize for these words which I have just put into this world]
Collin County (House 13): AKA Smallpox Estates
I didn’t realize Hobby Lobby sold home exterior decorating kits!! Brb hot gluing a bag of river rocks to my window trim.
Denton County (House 14): (AKA Clone Wars)
Sometimes a house is so wild, more than one joke on the picture would ruin its natural dramatic effect. Hence, the author would now like to use this space to point out that this house also has a nub, lol.
Fort Bend County (House 15): Lawyer Can of Shame
Sadly, the Smithsonian is not interested in my extremely fascinating and culturally important research on extremely bad and ugly home foyer typologies. I’m also probably on a government watchlist now.
Without further ado, our final house!
Rockwall County (House 16): AKA Satellite of Nub
Everybody who has been to college (or even a coffeshop near a college) knows that guy who pretends to be a beat poet and thinks that smoking joints in public and treating women like garbage makes him extremely cool and talented. The sixties were 80 million years ago and yet beatnik cosplayer dudes remain their longest-running export. (Stuff with The Beatles on it is the second longest running export.)
Time for (Jaws music)… THE BRACKET
Link to previous McMansion Hell Texas Post
(Might want to click to open in a New Tab if you’re not on desktop)
I’ve tried to make the bracket balanced and exciting, but like all brackets it’s probably not perfect.
To vote in the bracket, click HERE!
Best of luck to our hideous contestants!
Well, that’s it for Texas! (For now.) Join me for UTAH next week, plus the results for the first round of the Texas Standoff!
If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon!
There is a whole new slate of Patreon rewards, including Good House of the Week, Crowdcast streaming, monthly roasts of Important Architecture, and bonus essays!
Not into recurring donations or bonus content? Consider the tip jar! Or,Check out the McMansion Hell Store ! 100% of the proceeds from the McMansion Hell store go to charity!
Copyright Disclaimer: All photographs are used in this post under fair use for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107. Manipulated photos are considered derivative work and are Copyright © 2018 McMansion Hell. Please email kate@mcmansionhell.com before using these images on another site. (am v chill about this)
50 States of McMansion Hell: Texas Part 1
Howdy y’all!
I’ve been poisoning my brain the last couple of weeks narrowing down 2000 prospective McMansions to 16. Please give me a round of applause for this immense personal sacrifice. Instead of ranking them myself like I usually do, I will be doing a bracket at the end of the next post where you can vote for the Most Terrible in Texas! (After all, everything’s bigger in Texas!)
Without further ado, here are our first 8 contestants (in no apparent order):
Comal County (House 1) (AKA: White Castle)
I don’t know if this is “starting out on an easy one” because frankly none of them are easy. To understand the vastness of this sample size, this one random Texas McMansion is the equivalent to the worst McMansion from pretty much every other state in Tornado Alley.
Travis County (House 2) (AKA House of Topiary Torture)
For goodness sake, they’re plants, not poodles, Darleen.
Montgomery County (House 3) (AKA Cascading Nope)
this is the house version of when windows freezes and you can drag the little windows around
I feel like the people who built this house started off with a reasonable house, but, like a zit on prom night, they just kept picking and picking at it and now Joey from math class is staring right at you and your whole life is literally over.
Kendall County (House 4) (AKA Pastiche Castle)
People do realize that all the castles in the US are built by rich people playing king and not actual kings right? Nothing says “I love siege warfare” like a keep that’s half glorified foam.
Denton County (House 5) (AKA Mt Nub)
all you kiddos studying for the SAT can thank me for putting you on the spot with such 10-cent words as “porcine” and “ass.”
Rockwall County (House 6) (AKA The Gray Expanse)
Please keep photoshopping the sky and making my job much easier. The one good thing I can say about this house is that it at least retains the same material throughout instead of playing heirloom quilt with tile and stone.
Collin County (House 7) (AKA The Triple Can)
Last, but certainly not least:
Fort Bend County (House 8) (AKA Casa del Beige)
A politics joke??? In MY blog devoted to lambasting the Ugliness Brought Upon This Earth by the obnoxiously wealthy??
I hope you’re excited for Round 2, which will be posted early next week. We’ve got some, uh, unique houses coming your way! Be sure to check out Patreon where there are 5 Good Houses of the Week if you are in need of an eye rinse. I hope all of my fellow LGBTQIA+ followers had a Happy Pride!!!
If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon!
There is a whole new slate of Patreon rewards, including Good House of the Week, Crowdcast streaming, monthly roasts of Important Architecture, and bonus essays!
Not into recurring donations or bonus content? Consider the tip jar! Or, Check out the McMansion Hell Store ! 100% of the proceeds from the McMansion Hell store go to charity!
Copyright Disclaimer: All photographs are used in this post under fair use for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107. Manipulated photos are considered derivative work and are Copyright © 2018 McMansion Hell. Please email kate@mcmansionhell.com before using these images on another site. (am v chill about this)
50 States of McMansion Hell: Lincoln County, South Dakota
Howdy friends! It’s been awhile since I’ve done a house post – for those out of the loop, I’m currently in my last month of graduate school, truly hellish conditions – and I’ve decided to spice things up by switching South Carolina and South Dakota in order to avoid doing back-to-back beach houses.
HENCE our big house on the prairie:
This brick behemoth, built in 2007, features a whopping 6 bedrooms and 5 baths, topping out at almost 5,000 square feet. It can be all yours for around $800,000 USD.
Lawyer Foyer
Somebody should call a geologist, because I’ve never seen such unique clusters before in my life, and I must say I consider myself quite the slate enthusiast!
Living Room
Speaking of Facebook Aunt Catalogs, they’re online now, and I found one:
(aww baby freedomlets!)
Basement Italian Restaurant Dining Room
Once upon a time, I went to music school, and I think I remember double basses having much longer necks and, uh, a different shape.
Kitchen
(millennial joke voice): hey only my friends can call me sneaky trash
Master Bedroom
“But father, we are your children! How dare you bequeath your entire estate to your mistress leaving us penniless! Who, then, shall be the next Earl of Lincolnshire?”
Dog: bark
(Audience Laughs)
Master Bathroom
You may think that I am some kind of natural urbanite, but I, in fact, grew up in a small southern town, and will allow no prejudiced views towards rural life on my website, McMansion Hell dot com.
Den
Me, dressed up as a Serious Intellectual Speaking Softly on Public Television: You know folks, my parents used to get a ton of mail order catalogs when I was growing up and, like most children, I was fascinated by all the trinkets, trappings and treasures contained within those glossy pages. Fortunately, that experience, coupled with an encyclopedic knowledge of only the most useless, ridiculous subject matter (i.e. things for sale in mail order catalogs from 1999), has allowed me to make these jokes for you today. Thank you.
Bathroom 2:
(Jeb Bush Voice):
Bedroom 2:
actually these 2007 myspace glitter gifs describe grad school pretty well
Finally, we’ve come to our final part of the tour:
Rear Exterior
As 2007 as this journey has been, nothing is more 2007 than an unfinished McMansion.
Well, that does it for South Dakota. Join us next time for our South Carolina McMansion and stick around for the next installment of Looking Around!
If you like this post, and want to see more like it, consider supporting me on Patreon! Also JUST A HEADS UP - I’ve started posting a GOOD HOUSE built since 1980 from the area where I picked this week’s McMansion as bonus content on Patreon!
Not into recurring donations or bonus content? Consider the tip jar! Or, Check out the McMansion Hell Store ! 100% of the proceeds from the McMansion Hell store go to charity!
Copyright Disclaimer: All photographs are used in this post under fair use for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107. Manipulated photos are considered derivative work and are Copyright © 2018 McMansion Hell. Please email kate@mcmansionhell.com before using these images on another site. (am v chill about this)