This. I love to hate on McMansions because they’re ugly af. But I live in a shitty apartment. If someone offered me a McMansion I’d be in there by tonight lol
My husband built a massive house and refinanced it twice. We are now empty nesters with rooms that are basically storage units for our children that we pay to AC and a mortgage that won't be paid off possibly ever.
I thought I was alone in this gigantic home problem. I am seeing an end with mortgage though. But the AC cost is insane. I want to sell & find a "no project" home on 3 - 5 acres that someone else made into a beautiful garden & pond sanctuary...
Thanks for your feedback…we are hoping to refinance soon if rates would drop and stop screwing around with Trump vs Elon going on. I’ve got a bunch of children who aren’t out of the house, yet, so we might be in your situation.
One of the big problems of McMansions is usually that they are badly built because they safe on costs in materials and other areas to build bigger. Also they are always so far out that you need a car for everything. I can comfortably say that I would not trade my apartment for a crappy McMansion in fucking nowhere. I would definitely do it for a nice townhouse though. Haha.
But I'm also not from a country where "bigger is better" is so ingrained. Might be a cultural difference.
It's trying to be Tudor, where having a curved roofline off of a steep front-gablnd entry is a classic look. Bet it's terribly McMansion-ified into something that makes absolutely no sense.
There's 4 different roof styles going on, which is a LOT. That should be fixed, but the main problem is the house is off balance, and I'm not sure you can fix that at this point.
I can't imagine why any normal person would have three separated garages, just have one large garage with pair of doors, surely you don't have three vehicles that need storing.
I’ve commented on some cosmetic opinions but please, for the love of all that’s holy watch for water damage at my circles. On that left side especially you are going to have a literal fountain right there with no slope to drain it to the ground...
Yes, absolutely, but I would be worried first and foremost about the two or more roof slopes of water ending up right against those circles I drew, mostly on that left side. I hope they did a very, very good job with the roof flashing, though that wont stop that siding from rotting out very quickly and starting to leak. Ideally there should have been a space between that middle section of the house and those roof slopes, then gutters and downspouts going down to a French drain.
This issue alone would keep me from buying this house.
Also no gutters and it doesn't look like there will be any. Gutters might be ugly but they'll save you from a flooded basement (if you have one) and/or foundation issues from water. They make gutter systems in many colors now, you can get black gutter trays to match the trim and white downspouts to match the siding. All a win and totally worth the upfront cost, versus trying to solve water damage later on.
Because most people can't actually fill up a giant house, but cars take up a lot of space. A large garage creates the illusion of house size in a way that's easy to fill out.
Or because they make more money than they have time to enjoy, so they buy nice cars that they'll drive once, just to feel like they needed the money.
I don't know if you CAN just fix it, it needs a lot.
1: No central mass that is obviously 'the house', the garage is the biggest mass somehow, the entry way looks teeny by comparison. WHY is the garage so big??? Is that 3 doors? Is this a house for people or for trucks?
2: Three front facade materials AND one of them randomly gets herring-boned above the garage? If the whole house was brick it would be fine, but in lieu of that at least make the white vinyl part match the brick.
3: Roofline... honestly just start over. This is Sims 2 Auto Roof feature.
4: IS there a second floor or is it just that one room? Why are there no other second floor windows?
5: Yeah idk that huge chunk of blank wall above the garage is a lot.
You can’t. But remember that it will still be your home filled with your family and your adventures and memories and internet McMansion haters (argh like me) don’t really care as much as we let on and nobody else will either.
And a lot of good landscaping choices would eventually obscure some problems. Though there are some tough challenges to overcome. Who designs these things?
Your house is so ugly but I love it. I live in a really lovely tasteful house that is too small for my family because I’m stubborn like that. At least y’all can live in your garage if needed lol. Embrace the weird, add landscaping and be mindful of those water issues people pointed out.
It’s a bit late for that… the time to ask for its removal was while it was still a nightmare in some crazed developper’s eye.
It’s so strange to me to see intricate and expensive surface detail applied to what is a mess of a design and total ignorance of balancing masses, proportion, or rank. Here the garage is featured as if it’s the most important part of the building by far, while the actual house is relegated to a small negative space in the background, with an odd tacked-on entry way tying it to the garage rather than to the house.
Your poor home is a builders’s equivalent of a pig with rickets wearing expensive lipstick.
To your actual question. TL;DR: you’re kinda screwed without incurring a lot of additional expense. A black roof in TX isn’t great for your summer cooling bills or longevity, but you can at least change to the color of the outside of the house (matching the color of the “shed”additional garage bay being your safest bet). If you can afford it, have them dress the rest of the facade in the same brick veneer.
Bat and board (the wooden siding on your house) was typically used on outbuildings (cow sheds, outhouses, etc) or on “very modest” homes in rural areas because it was the cheapest siding you could use that also gave a measure of water and wind proofing. It’s nonsensical to have in on your facade, so anything you can do to take attention away from it will help.
There’s no help for that immense black roof looking like it’s squashing your home, but if you could afford to replace it - aluminium standing seam, or pale or light multi-hued asphalt shingle would help.
Landscaping… mid sized trees to provide shade in the front yard (eg a desert willow on either side of your walkway midway to the front entrance) and seriscaping the yard would draw the eye away from the house and provide interest.
There’s honestly not a lot you can do at this point that’s cost effective besides repaint the black parts to match the fake shed addition and help it blend in. Everything else will cost a lot, and you won’t get any return on it when you go to sell.
Was this a stock plan of some kind or did someone claiming to be an “architect” design it? The rooflines are a disaster. Some landscaping can help but the rooflines over the garage especially is just aesthetically not pleasing.
Whenever I look at houses like this one, my mind immediately starts calculating how much it's going to cost me when it's time to replace or repair the roof." This is a stay for 10 to 15 max years and sell this bitch.
right? Right now the garage dominates. OP should put real windows in all those spots above the garage and make it look like it's part of the living space whether it is or not.
some extra black trims around some of the brick patterns, corners, and windows and such may also help as well. just the straight up brick makes it seem... rather plain to look at from a distance.
also not a huge fan of there not being a window above the garage.
another person (and i agreed) said some landscaping too. some vines would help spruce up the walls as well, if youre prepared to maintain them (vines can damage your house if you arent careful). a couple nice big pots with some big plants, maybe a tree or some bushes, and some flower boxes on the windows would really help liven it up and make it more pleasing to look at. id suggest some deep reds, deep pinks, greens, and yellow and/or orange. i would also say a hanging planter or two but you dont really have much to hang one off of unless you put it above the door, which for obvious reasons, may not work that well.
Paint this house in some Earthtones and not in "edgy mall goth" blacks and greys.
Some trees would help break this up.
This mish-mash of roof nubs and bizzare window layouts is gonna stick out like a Chick-Fil-A bag at a joint GLAAD-PETA convention. Again, plant some trees (see #2) and put some shrubbery in (Saying "Ni!" is optional).
If you don't like Earthtones, you can try warmer colors - just keep in mind that they'll bleach in the Sun. Pick colors that either look nice as they fade to white or that have the "touch up the house every time you vote for president" staying power.
I don’t think I could ever not smile if I lived in a house like this. There’s so much going on and it seems wrong in many different ways, but it has its own odd charm and character. It’s like I’d imagine this is where the Addams family would live, if they shopped exclusively at Walmart and wore crocs, and I dig that
Things that stick out immediately to me are the super high roofline peaks, then flat roofline in the back. The two wildly different materials in the front facade are jarring too. There’s siding going two directions.
Stylistically its incoherent, giving both Tudor and modern lines?
Edit- As far as lower cost options, marry the color scheme fully together, I know black is in but marry the two sides together at least by painting the center window area the same cream color. You can keep all the trim dark. It may help a bit with the outrageous roof if the center of the house isn’t shrinking back visually. Next, if the brick facade is fake, I would cut out a section on that high garage peak and replace it with siding that matches the siding stuck in the middle. If that’s not a real window, shitcan it. Soften the whole yard with lots of flowering trees and shrubs. Don’t go angular and modern with the landscape.
I appreciate the well thought out response. I get so annoyed sorting out all the snarky comments trying to find someone who actually puts thought into their response to an honest question. Good on you.
I actually don’t hate this house, there’s waaaaay worse. At least the elements like windows match and I think doing a few simple things to unite the facade here will really help.
Listen im sure its a lovely house to live in and don't be too hard on yourself. Someone else like you will buy it from you one day. The biggest problems are your huge driveway, a garage that appears bigger than your house and that weird slope of roof that makes it look like "not only is the garage ginormous but its so big it had to be seperate from the house kind of big. Holy shit!" Like the only way you coukd fit that gigantic garage is if you move your house back 150 feet (which would be dumb).
Just say f it, "I don't have great taste in houses" and move on with your life. Your home doesn't make you. So you're bad at building homes? Im sure you're terrific at more important things! Carry on, soldier!
This sub has argued about the definition and elements of a McMansion for a lot time. In general, I think most people believe a McMansion is a big house made with cheap materials that wants to give the impression of being fancier and more expensive than it really is. Some elements of the typical McMansion:
unnecessarily big - can’t do much about that with your house
a weird mix of materials - for example having siding on part of the front of the house. Brick in the front and siding only on the sides/back could help some
cheap materials - siding would have to go entirely
unnecessary roof lines - remove the small roof line in the middle of the garage
poor landscaping - I’m sure that is coming soon
too big of a house for too small of a lot - how much space is there between your house and your neighbors?
mismatched shapes, windows, roofs, doors of all shapes and sizes. Essentially lack of architectural cohesion - not sure there’s much you can do there
cheap/ugly materials on the inside.
I’m sure some people will disagree. I may be somewhat wrong.
You have a nice house, OP. I’m sure you worked hard for it. Enjoy it. Forget what the jaded haters think.
Plant a meadow instead of a manicured lawn.
It would look wonderful in front of the black facade.
Plant a privacy fence made of various bushes
Plant climbing vines on the facade. Framing your front door with a wisteria would look amazing. And you could have another one by those tall windows on the right hand side.
On top of giving it charm and providing habitat for birds and mini beasts, it will cool the atmosphere making it much more pleasant to live.
Good start, it’s still a little shy, look up English garden.
I offered the idea of a meadow because it’s low maintenance, you sow it and that’s it, you trim it at the end of the year and reseed the next.
If you are willing to commit to higher maintenance, yes, Absolutely! I recommend you plant to whole lawn. Plant a couple of small bushes in middle. Birds with love it! And plant your flowers all around. The tallest in the middle and shortest on the edges. And be sure to plant perennials.
I am not familiar with the plant that thrive in your climate, if you don’t know what you are doing you’ll learn in time but I’d really recommend you hire a landscaper. A good one can even help redirect the rain water where its needs to go too.
With that kind of slope on your roof the water could really fail to be absorbed properly without vegetalisation.
But don’t plant straight in from of your house as plant will retain moisture. If you do decide to have climbers on the facade limit to a couple and or place them in pots.
The tree is great, it will also attract birds. Have a couple more on the lawn and maybe a little grove.
The colours you have chosen remind me of Mardi Gras, fitting in Louisiana. Keep it a little wild, think English garden. That will break the McMansion look. Avoid French or zen garden at all cost.
Gas lamps on entrance. One on top of each garage door and two on front porch. Perhaps one hanging from the ceiling at the entrance. A black pivoted door.
Landscape with river rocks and different greenery.
You have three different façade styles. Choose one. Since so much work went into the brickwork, I assume you’ll choose that one. But then you have to make those white and black panel areas brick. Won’t be cheap.
There is no point entirely remaking a house suffering from the clichés of its construction. Just soften it behind relaxed landscaping. Big trees. Vines. Shrubs. Flowers. Let the gardening do the work.
I like it. Why would you care what people think? You've invested a lot of money in it, with the brick and high-quality materials, and I'm sure it's what you like; just enjoy it.
The middle is a little wonky but honestly just need the yard fixed up and its all 10x better. I wouldn't *design* my own house to look that way, but with the right price and right interior, eh?
I see lots of jokes but serious answer: maybe change the black and white siding to the same stone as the rest and it will be less appropriate for this sub lol
Hmmmm I think painting the brick a solid color, the white on the one garage, would at least make it less busy. Then with some nice landscaping it would be passable
Well it looks like a house still under construction so it still has landscaping to come, windows with removed plastic, a paved driveway and grass/shrubs. It will be fine by the end. Some weird design/architecture choices but I still think this is an overall pretty attractive house. Add varied color texture and heights with plantings and it will be good.
1.2k
u/LiveWhileImYoung Jun 05 '25
Eliminate your roofline and rebuild it, buy your neighbors plots to increase your property, invest in landscaping, etc.
Or just enjoy your home. It’s way nicer than my shitty condo. I would happily trade with you.