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mcmansionhell · 2 years

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this house may or may not be real

on grayness in real estate

Allegedly, somewhere in Wake Forest, North Carolina, a 4 bed, 5.5 bathroom house totaling more than 6,600 square feet is for sale at a price of 2.37 million dollars. The house, allegedly, was built in 2021. Allegedly, it looks like this:

A McMansion is, in effect, the same house over and over again - it's merely dressed up in different costumes. In the 90s, the costume was Colonial; in the 2000s, it was vague forms of European (Tuscan, Mediterranean), and in the 2010s it was Tudor, dovetailed by "the farmhouse" -- a kind of Yeti Cooler simulacra of rural America peddled to the populace by Toll Brothers and HGTV.

Now, we're fully in the era of whatever this is. Whitewashed, quasi-modern, vaguely farmhouse-esque, definitely McMansion. We have reached, in a way, peak color and formal neutrality to the point where even the concept of style has no teeth. At a certain moment in its life cycle, styles in vernacular architecture reach their apex, after which they seem excessively oversaturated and ubiquitous. Soon, it's time to move on. After all, no one builds houses that look like this anymore:

(This is almost a shame because at least this house is mildly interesting.)

If we return to the basic form of both houses, they are essentially the same: a central foyer, a disguised oversized garage, and an overly complex assemblage of masses, windows, and rooflines. No one can rightfully claim that we no longer live in the age of the McMansion. The McMansion has instead simply become more charmless and dull.

When HGTV and the Gaineses premiered Fixer Upper in 2013, it seemed almost harmless. Attractive couple flips houses. Classic show form. However, Fixer Upper has since (in)famously ballooned into its own media network, a product line I'm confronted with every time I go to Target, and a general 2010s cultural hallmark not unlike the 1976 American Bicentennial - both events after which every house and its furnishings were somehow created in its image. (The patriotism, aesthetic and cultural conservatism of both are not lost on me.)

But there's one catch: Fixer Upper is over, and after the Gaineses, HGTV hasn't quite figured out where to go stylistically. With all those advertisers, partners, and eyeballs, the pressure to keep one foot stuck in the rural tweeness that sold extremely well was great. At the same time, the network (and the rest of the vernacular design media) couldn't risk wearing out its welcome. The answer came in a mix of rehashed, overly neutral modernism -- with a few pops of color, yet this part often seems omitted from its imitators -- with the prevailing "farmhouse modern" of Magnolia™ stock. The unfortunate result: mega-ultra-greige.

Aside from war-mongering, rarely does the media manufacture consent like it does in terms of interior design. People often ask me: Why is everything so gray? How did we get here? The answer is because it is profitable. Why is it profitable? I'd like to hypothesize several reasons. The first is as I mentioned: today's total neutrality is an organic outgrowth of a previous but slightly different style, "farmhouse modern," that mixed the starkness of the vernacular farmhouse with the soft-pastel Pinterest-era rural signifiers that have for the last ten years become ubiquitous.

Second, neutrals have always been common and popular. It's the default choice if you don't have a vision for what you want to do in a space. In the 2000s, the neutrals du jour were "earth tones" - beige, sage green, brown. Before that, it was white walls with oak trim in the 80s and 90s. In the 70s, neutrals were textural: brick and wood paneling. We have remarkably short memories when it comes to stylistic evolution because in real time it feels incremental. Such is the case with neutrals.

Finally, the all-gray palette is the end logic of HGTV et al's gamified methodology of designing houses with commodification in mind: if you blow out this wall, use this color, this flooring, this cabinetry, the asking price of your house goes up. You never want to personalize too much because it's off-putting to potential buyers. After twenty years of such rhetoric, doesn't it make all the sense in the world that we've ended up with houses that are empty, soulless, and gray?

A common realtor adage is to stage the house so that potential buyers can picture their own lives in it. In other words, create a tabula rasa one can project a fantasy of consumption onto. Implied in that logic is that the buyer will then impose their will on the house. But when the staged-realtor-vision and general-mass-market aesthetic of the time merge into a single dull slurry, we get a form of ultra-neutral that seems unwelcoming if not inescapable.

To impose one's style on the perfect starkness is almost intimidating, as though one is fouling up something untouchable and superior. If neutrality makes a house sell, then personality - at all - can only be seen as a detriment. Where does such an anti-social practice lead us? Back to the house that may or may not exist.

In my travels as McMansion Hell, I've increasingly been confronted with houses full of furniture that isn't real. This is known as virtual staging and it is to house staging as ChatGPT is to press release writing or DALL-E is to illustration. As this technology improves, fake sofa tables are becoming more and more difficult to discern from the real thing. I'm still not entirely sure which of the things in these photos are genuine or rendered. To walk through this house is to question reality.

Staging ultimately pretends (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) that someone is living in this house, that you, too could live in it. Once discovered, virtual staging erases all pretensions: the house is inhabited by no one. It is generally acknowledged (though I'm not sure on the actual statistics) that a house with furniture - that is, with the pretense of living -- sells easier than a house with nothing in it, especially if that house (like this one) has almost no internal walls. Hence the goal is to make the virtual staging undiscoverable.

If you want to talk about the realtor's tabula rasa, this is its final form. Houses without people, without human involvement whatsoever.

But what makes this particular house so uncanny is that all of these things I've mentioned before: real estate listing photography, completely dull interiors and bland colors all make it easy for the virtual furniture to work so well. This is because the softness of overlit white and gray walls enables the fuzzy edges of the renderings to look natural when mixed with an overstylized reality. Even if you notice something's off in the reflections, that's enough to cause one to wonder if anything in the house is real: the floors, the fixtures, the moulding, the windows and doors.

This is where things are heading: artifice on top of artifice on top of artifice. It's cheap, it's easy. But something about it feels like a violation. When one endeavors to buy a house, one assumes what one is viewing is real. It's one thing if a realtor photoshops a goofy sunset, it's another to wonder if anything in a room can be touched with human hands. I won't know what, if any, part of this estate costing over 2 million dollars actually exists until I visit it myself. Perhaps that's the whole point - to entice potential buyers out to see for themselves. When they enter, they'll find the truth: a vast, empty space with nothing in it.

The better this rendering technology gets, the more it will rely on these totally neutral spaces because everything matches and nothing is difficult. You are picking from a catalog of greige furniture to decorate greige rooms. If you look at virtual staging in a non-neutral house it looks immediately plastic and out of place, which is why many realtors opt to either still stage using furniture or leave the place empty.

Due to the aforementioned photography reasons, I would even argue that the greigepocalypse or whatever you want to call it and virtual staging have evolved simultaneously and mutualistically. The more virtual staging becomes an industry standard, the more conditions for making it seamless and successful will become standardized as well.

After all, real staging is expensive and depends on paid labor - selecting furniture, getting workers to deliver and stage it, only to pack it back up again once the property is sold. This is a classic example of technology being used to erase entire industries. Is this a bad thing? For freelance and contract workers, yeah. For realtors? no. For real estate listings, it remains to be seen. For this blog? Absolutely. (Thankfully there is an endless supply of previously existing McMansions.)

The thing is, real estate listings no longer reflect reality. (Did they ever to begin with?) The reason we're all exasperated with greige is because none of us actually live that way and don't want to. I've never been to anyone's house that looks like the house that may or may not exist. Even my parents who have followed the trends after becoming empty nesters have plenty of color in their house. Humans like color. Most of us have lots of warmth and creativity in our houses. Compare media intended for renters and younger consumers such as Apartment Therapy with HGTV and you will find a stark difference in palate and tone.

But when it comes to actually existing houses - look at Zillow and it's greige greige greige. So who's doing this? The answer is real estate itself aided by their allies in mass media who in turn are aided by the home renovation industry. In other words, it's the people who sell home as a commodity. That desire to sell has for some time overpowered all other elements that make up a home or an apartment's interiority to the point where we've ended up in a colorless slurry of real and unreal.

Fortunately, after ten years or so, things begin to become dated. We're hitting the ten year mark of farmhouse modernism and its derivatives now. If you're getting sick of it, it's normal. The whole style is hopefully on its last leg. But unlike styles of the past, there's a real, trenchant material reason why this one is sticking around longer than usual.

Hence, maybe if we want the end of greige, we're going to have to take color back by force.

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#architecture #design #2010s #mcmansion #mcmansion hell #nc #2021 #essay

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shortnotsweet · 5 months

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This technically applies to my Stepmother AU in which Alicent is around six years older than Rhaenyra, and occupies a wicked stepmother role as opposed to ex ‘friends-to-first loves-to-enemies’. Despite lacking the foundation of shared girlhood, both find simultaneous comfort and rivalry in one another, and undergo a gravitational pull. A young Rhaenyra’s eagerness to participate in swordplay and political affairs at a young is accommodated for, and she grows up with a sword in one hand and the weight of experience in another, which further helps pave her way to the throne.

Alicent’s Costuming

Alicent’s clothing is almost entirely bottle, emerald, or forest green. While there is layering present in her skirts and jackets, the accent should always be a darker green than the base color. The fabric is deep, rich, and retains an undeniably high-quality luster. Look to velvets and silks. Gold embroidery lingers around her sleeves, neck, and hemline to elevate the coloring.

Metallic embellishments should be almost military-like, and appear heavy. Contribute to the imagery of chains or shackles in addition to her status

Draws inspiration from historically accurate stiffness and Victorian shapes, with a tapered waist, imposing, puffy sleeves, and a high neckline. Despite inaccuracies, this shape is evocative of someone elegantly and conservatively feminine, repressed, and capable of exerting power over others. Reference a classic, trussed hourglass shape. Skirts should be notably heavy and full; may make noise in movement

The coloring and shapes remain relatively consistent but lack variation; this is to demonstrate a lack of freedom and exploration, as well as an adherence to conventional feminine roles

Despite these limitations, her costuming should always be put-together, coordinated, and unquestionably fashionable. Tight sleeve cuffs may be accompanied by a more traditionally medieval fan sleeve

Shoes should stick mostly to slippers, or flat designs

In this AU, her hair leans more towards a dark brown instead of auburn, as her show counterpart. This is mostly due to faux-book accuracy and to simplify the sketch process, since keeping her hair darker in comparison to Rhaenyra’s lighter hair translates more easily in uncolored renderings.

Keep her hair either in a tidy bun or pulled back and loose; avoid too many intricate shapes, braids, or styles. Occasionally, the hair will hang loose. Lean into medieval or royal headpieces, clips, coverings, etc.

Rhaenyra’s Costuming

Rhaenyra’s clothes are primarily black and red, occasionally accented or substituted with neutrals such as beige, white, or gray. Exceptions may include blue or yellow, but she generally stays in this color palette.

Strong focus is drawn to her shoulders and neckline, sometimes with embroidered or embellished detailing. She often has strong, angular shoulders in her dresses or jackets, occasionally theatrically pointed. Off-the shoulder necklines emphasize her collarbones and a certain broadness.

There should be decent variety in her clothing; there is a hypothetical outfit for every occasion and more (for battle, for riding, everyday, formal, feasts, everyday, etc.), and most should be composed of multiple pieces and utilize generous layering. This includes under-fabric, belts and corsets, jackets and doublets, draped fabric for aesthetic purpose, and even functional capes.

Most of her clothes should provide visual aid for movement; additional fabric to her skirts, for example. Her clothes should be highly stylized but still easy to move in. In riding and battle gear, it is presumed that she wears pants and boots under her skirts, even if they are not visible.

Shoes lean more into boot cuts, still practical but should have a sleek and uniform quality to them. When she walks, she should make some kind of noise. Shoes should usually be black or potentially red, the latter for decorative purposes.

Overall her style should be more contemporary and lean into the fantasy element. She’s not opposed to oriental details or showing skin, and her costumes should reflect both couture-height drama and period-reliant aspects. Longer lines and diagonal hems mean she is not as devoted to an hourglass shape, and her high collars should always be decorative in some respect.

Keep her hair long and mostly loose, sometimes pulled back. Small braids should be implied as incorporated. Occasional hairstyles feature complicated braids. With the exception of highly decorative braided styles, simple buns should be avoided unless accompanied with very high necklines.

Avoid headpieces that are not either a) her crown or b) ceremonial.

#rhaenicent #rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #house of the dragon #hotd #rhaenyra x alicent #asoiaf #my art #thinking about how their character and costume designs are so communicative and are designed with each other in mind. for example havijg bc #the strong shoulders and embroidered necklines keeps them connected although imo they could’ve played around with it a lot more #I just have a lot of thoughts about them ok

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