Parade of Homes as an Introduction to Cultural Oddities — Ridiculously Tall Ceilings, Blatantly Wasted Space and Charging Rhinoceros Materialism — and a Comment on the Invitation to Filth Posed by Wall-to-Wall Carpeting

© 2012 Peter Free

 

09 August 2012

 

 

Three (loosely related) points to this essay

 

These are:

 

(1) Culture can be used as an excuse for being irrational, and even stupid, in the same breath.

 

I am a rationalist, not a cultural relativist.  Which means that I get to call mean-spirited and/or societally self-destructive trends or people, “nasty” and “stupid.”

 

(2) Wealthy humanity’s common sense fell over a cliff a couple of eons ago, at roughly the same time sabre-toothed cats went extinct.

 

With nothing left to keep our lusts in line, we tend to go overboard, even to the point of self-destruction.

 

(3) 2012’s Colorado Springs Parade of Homes says something about the thriving state of American over-the-top materialism.

 

Despite a wounded economy that a rational person might have thought would have put a premium on the exercise of restraint and common sense.

 

 

Caveat — am I over-generalizing?

 

What follows is impressionistically based on 2011 and 2012’s two Front Range (Colorado) Parades of Homes.  These showings may not be indicative of other regions.

 

However, my experience with Parades of Homes in other states estimates that our region’s embrace of materialistic excess and blatant waste in new home building parallels that in economically equivalent other places.

 

 

Colorado Springs’ 2012 Parade of Homes — excess on stilts

 

These houses are huge.

 

There are 24 homes on display this year.  Two are connected with Habitat for Humanity.  I have deleted them from my analysis because both are aimed at a sane and subsidized market.

 

The remaining 22 homes average 3,881 square feet (361 square meters) in size.

 

If we eliminate those costing $500,000 or more, we are left with 17 homes, at an average size of 3,485 square feet (324 square meters).

 

This is an arguably big house, even for a family of four or five people.

 

We can argue about whether this size is “necessary.”  But, given the fact that generations of Americans with larger families lived in houses significantly less than one-third of this areal size , I suspect that rational people will agree that “necessary” is a stretch.

 

 

Lessons not learned?

 

One might have assumed that the housing collapse of 2007 and 2008, and potentially volatile energy prices, would have been taken as warnings in regard to the dangers posed by “house lust,” even for people with financial means.

 

Note

 

Analytically speaking, I recognize that what the Parade of Homes builders have put on display does not necessarily correlate with what people will buy.

 

But if last year was an indicator, these Parade homes will sell at prices that encourage the building of similar more.

 

 

Associated oddities — wasted space and dumb design

 

When we have access to large volumes of space, we tend to become inefficient in organizing it.  In addition to being arguably too big, these Parade homes are also wastefully designed.

 

For example, this year seems to exemplify a local trend to incorporate a very large, central, second floor open space.  With only one exception, this area abuts three or more bedrooms, and is laid out in such a way that there was no direct line of sight for a television or any other central focus.

 

These spaces seem to be designed (and furnished) for people to sit.  The problem with that is that people don’t simply sit and talk anymore.

 

And I do not see the logic in creating a space where people can make noise, while other people, especially children, are trying to sleep.

 

Similar waste shows up in the prevalence of 10 to 12 foot and higher (3 to 3.5 meter) ceilings.  Curiously, these appear in ordinary rooms, hallways, and bathrooms.  The cathedral concept of ten years ago seems to have expanded itself into making every room in the home vertical enough to house exceptionally tall aliens from Planet Giganticus.

 

It seems not to have occurred to these builders that heating and cooling useless and unusable space is in no one’s financial best interest.  Including our national interest, which thoughtful people are trying to aim toward energy conservation and efficiency.

 

Master bedrooms in the Parade Homes are also over the top.  Several, on this tour, have room enough for a king size bed and (almost literally) a marching band.

 

I noticed quite a few unnecessarily large and long hallways and strangely designed (or placed) “offices.” These inefficiencies are apparently the result of plopping huge kitchens and living rooms into the core of the home — without paying adequate attention to how the rest of the house should more efficiently have been organized around them.

 

 

One builder’s killer statement to me

 

One builder stood out from the rest for having an eye for space efficiency, even though delivered in over-the-top areal excess.

 

When I asked whether this company could build a home half the size of the approximately 4,000 square foot (372 square meter) one on display, its representative said no.  Buyers had to opt for the full and finished basement that doubled the size of the home’s roughly 2,000 square foot (186 square meter) footprint.

 

In other words, you could buy spatial efficiency, but you had to buy it in a package that was more than double your most profligate needs.

 

 

An aside on carpeting

 

This Parade’s huge, wasteful, and unnecessarily expensive homes all come with vast areas of wall-to-wall carpeting.

 

The carpet is usually of cheap quality — a throw-away compromise floor covering that will be visibly filthy in four months.  And even when regularly cleaned, will be completely worn out in two to three years.

 

I cannot think of a floor that is better designed to attract and retain dirt and micro-organisms.

 

If you recall chemistry and biology, you will remember that one way to maximize the area of a substrate is to expand it from two dimensions to three by incorporating vertical filaments onto it.  The area goes up by orders of magnitude.

 

Ordinarily, this concept is used to filter fluids (maximizing the efficiency of the filter) or to provide microscopic life (which you want to “house”) with more places to live.

 

Carpet features both characteristics in spades.  The problem is that no rational person wants a home filled with a voracious dirt and germ attractor.  Even when cleaned, carpet is still microscopically filthy. Given its layered nature, it is absolutely impossible to clean it to the degree that one can simply by mopping a hard surface.

 

In spite of these flaws, wall to wall carpeting seems to be de rigueur in American homes.  Certainly so in these Parade houses.

 

The incorporation of this noxious floor covering into houses that presumably could have been slightly de-sized — so as to allow the use of more costly, cleaner, and much longer-lasting floor materials — is a cultural oddity that I always notice.

 

 

The moral? — Ostentatious and wasteful consumerism is alive and well, even in the economy-reeling United States

 

Charging Rhino Materialism is apparently deeply embedded in our cultural genes.

 

I (almost) wish the sabre-tooths were back to sharpen our meandering mental and spiritual perspectives.