Yeah ours has the vinyl and it does cheapen the look. It’s on the list. The boxes though - they are just blocks made with concrete blocks and stucco-ed.

I like some gray but gray fake wood floors are among the worst, who thought that would look good for more than 5 minutes? I don’t like marble floors either. Wood in a wood color is #1, terrazzo is fine, nice tile is fine.

I do know people have different taste but don’t think that this exterior or interior could be pleasing to anyone, and again the house was well over a million $. Though to be fair they had to drop it from 1.5 to 1.2 to sell it, that is still too much and nobody is building anything reasonable except people who are hiring their own builders. All the speculative ones are either straight up boxes or something like this, going into a neighborhood that was just little houses, frame or block. For that $$ I would want much more kitchen too.

Agreed. I have never lived in a house younger than 70. While there are upsides beyond style (old growth forest framing, solid wood floors) there are downsides - have always been able to get central air, even in the 1925 house, but so very many things have to be changed and fixed. I wouldn’t even try with a 200 year old house unless I was so rich. But if I was, I might. Or might build a reproduction with some reclaimed materials and some modern touches.

Even in our house, half 1940 half 1990, new metal roof, roof attachments, hurricane windows, and we are not yet close to the current building standards. An endless work in progress, I would enjoy that if it wasn’t financially stressful, but the house I love and it’s not as stressful as a mortgage and taxes on a 1.5M ugly house.

Yeah that happens here because they are knocking down one house and building two. I don’t really disagree with that, honestly. But they don’t need to be that big.

If you have the budget to buy the ugly box, you have the budget to buy the cardboard house, knock it down and build something you like that isn’t so enormous. We didn’t have the budget for either so are just slowly renovating and hardening the house we bought.

My point isn’t that houses are too expensive - that is beyond question at this point. Even your cardboard box would cost too much now for most anybody. What I do not understand is rich people buying ugly prefabricated stuff in general. I would use that budget for something bespoke.

I honestly don’t understand the houses going up in my neighborhood - it’s getting gentrified and what is being built is so ugly. Who is buying these ugly ass houses for 1.5 MILLION dollars? If that was my budget I’d build something beautiful with a big porch like this picture, but all the “luxury” homes are boxes with big garages in front. I look at them on Zillow and they aren’t even pretty on the inside.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

I really do not like homework for little kids, they are in school 8 hours, that’s time for a study hall and recess, they aren’t going to forget how to read overnight, and don’t have enough free time as it stands now. So much of what little kids need is time to develop, not just academic instruction.

From 12 yo or so, sure, but school should be fewer hours then, like college, classes for lecture and questions, and work done outside class. 2 of mine had high schools that worked like that, with a long study hall period because school district mandates on campus time, and those two were the most successful in college, and so far also in career.

Opposite for me. I try to always fall asleep sober, going to bed drunk gives me interrupted sleep. Fall asleep faster, sure. But always wake up in the night. Sober, I sometimes have trouble falling asleep but once asleep generally sleep until morning.

More than one a day is pretty unhealthy, could you just time a small nightcap right, and drink less not none?