There are a couple of new housing tracts in my area and we went to check them out yesterday. Impressive places - the most expensive tract houses I have ever seen anywhere. They've pulled out all the stops as far as staging them and I took a few pictures.

I thought LL might like to see how they're doing drought tolerant these days. They used to mimic desert landscapes with all of the plants evenly spaced apart but now I'm seeing more massing. Everything is drip watered now, even lawns.





This picture of wall art is for Jodi. Very clever:



TVs hanging on the wall are boring. This is much more interesting:



Lots of tiled walls where you don't expect to see them - like in bedrooms.



And this M.C Escher laundry room:



This bedroom has 18" square slate tiles on the wall. Not what I'd want over my head in an earthquake:



Wallpaper is back. This one is particularly interesting - it looks like what happens when you push the wrong buttons on your photo app and all of your pictures are displayed at once.



This house has a dog bed area. Id get more use out of a dog washing area.



The designers did cool things with patio covers that make shadow patterns on the ground:

Only one house had granite counters. The rest are all synthetic solid surface. I think this is Caesar Stone. Islands made from materials different than the cabinets appear to be a thing. I was surprised to see that most of the kitchens used painted cabinets.



This is interesting stuff - it's wood installed like tile:

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All of the houses had these disappearing glass walls. I really like them:



The closets are all insanely big. This house had two of them adjoining the master bath - one for her:



And one for him:

Wow, some of those are gorgeous (some maybe less so).

I love looking at these pics, and I might like to stay in a place like that, like, maybe a hotel.

But I don’t think I’d want that kind of decor in my own home. It’s too much, and you couldn’t really add your own touches, or change things up easily.

I’m reminded of advice you gave us when we were picking out paint colors, something to the effect that the neutral wall colors would work better with our colorful artwork and interesting pieces (like my chair with the lion heads carved into the wood).

In these photos, the decor itself is the art.

Outdoor shower is let in to the patio paving. The black rocks around the tile are the drain. You can just see the shower head at the top of the picture. The floor is wet in the picture, and I wonder if the tiles will stain over time.





Several houses had this backlit Mica looking stuff - shades of the sixties!



This is the granite kitchen. I'm not a fan of the waterfall style - way too much stone:



And last - a photo of the new Yorba Linda High School, taken from the second floor balcony of one of the models. It's claim to fame is that it was built ahead of schedule and for less than the budget - absolutely unheard of in public works projects. The company who designed and built it normally builds shopping centers and it's built like one.

Wow, fascinating photos Steve. Thanks for posting these. I love those wall/windows between the porches and patios.

The disappearing glass walls are awesome. The waterfall counter I have never understood.

Other than that I found the palettes dull and the rooms cold - and I really like modern.

quote:

Originally posted by Mikhailoh:
Other than that I found the palettes dull and the rooms cold - and I really like modern.

I agree. The only room that had much color was this one:

/17549106@N06/]cheyenps[/url], on Flickr

What are the bed/bath/sqft and asking price stats?

All of this would be very high end, even for my severely overpriced area. Assuming it's about 5 bed/7-ish bath and about 5500 sqft, this would be about a 5 mill house in the Seattle 'burbs.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
And this M.C Escher laundry room:

Aren't those water hammer arrestors in the wall above the W/D? You should have swiped them.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
And this M.C Escher laundry room:

Aren't those water hammer arrestors in the wall above the W/D? You should have swiped them.

Very observant! That's exactly what they are.

When I saw them my thought was that the valves were set up for laundry machines on pedestals to cover up the valves and receptacles. They should have included those pedestals in the design.

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:
What are the bed/bath/sqft and asking price stats?

All of this would be very high end, even for my severely overpriced area. Assuming it's about 5 bed/7-ish bath and about 5500 sqft, this would be about a 5 mill house in the Seattle 'burbs.

Very close and high-end for here as well. The smallest one we saw was 3900 SF, 4 BR, 5 BA (more or less - there are lots of optional layouts) and started at $1.96 mil. The larger ones (most of the pictures) were in the 5K SF range and ranged from $3 mil to $4 mil. The model for the largest house was being sold furnished at $5 mil.

I don't quite understand the fascination. These are tract houses on maybe 10K SF lots. There are options available, but nothing like a custom house. The stock finishes are nothing like the ones shown in the models.

I suspect a lot of these (both tracts are nearly sold out) are being bought by overseas buyers who may or may not spend a lot of time in them.

Interesting. Although I like the look of the walls initially, I'm not sure if they would survive the test of time. Chipping out the backsplash wall in the bedroom would be a much bigger job than changing the paint on a wall.

Am I the only one that saw that wood-tile installed wall and immediately thought about what a pain it would be to keep it clean?

I like the disappearing glass walls, to a point. If you leave them open, you have critters coming and going. If you close them, you have to have some sort of decals to keep your guests and birds from walking/flying into them. (Nothing says luxury like smashed birds outside your glass doors. ) I think you'd also have to have something (plant?) at that corner point, since walking into a plate glass wall would be embarrassing, but walking into a plate glass corner could actually cause harm.

We were so trendy! We've had quartz counters mixed with a granite island for 8 years. I agree, not a fan of the waterfall thing. Maybe if it were quartz, maybe. Given the cost, it doesn't move me enough to consider doing it.

I guess it looks cool, but I'm not sure it's actually super livable unless you are a neat freak and can hire people to vacuum and buff your walls.

Another thing...! This trend toward many, many bedrooms. There are some families who actually require 4-5 bedrooms, but they are in the minority (and most likely aren't in the market for a $5M house). The multiple bedrooms are intended to be... offices? guest rooms? workout rooms? I keep thinking that, for the price you'd save in buying a 3 bedroom, you could put up your guests and family members in style whenever they visited.

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
Another thing...! This trend toward many, many bedrooms.

Listening to some of my neighbors in their McMansions, it's mostly so they can say "mine's bigger".

The one next door to me is a family of four. Each kid has a bedroom that's at least twice as big as mine with his own bathroom. Grandma and grandpa were living with them for many years to help take care of the kids. It's a five bedroom house.

The one kitty-corner from me is a five or six bedroom -- again, each bedroom has its own bathroom plus at least two partials. They have like four kids and apparently a live-in nanny.

The one across the street and down the block has two or three kids.

But these are the exceptions. Most are a couple with no kids and one or two yappy dogs.


The other thing is that a majority of these houses get resold about two years after they are built. Someone buys them, moves in (or not), then two years later they are back on the market. I figure one of two things is happening: they first buyer comes to their senses and realizes they don't need 5000 sqft for two people and two yappy dogs, or they get the first property tax bill. The 1950s house they tore down had a property tax bill of around $5000 a year. The McMansion that replaces it pays at least three times that amount. There's one down the street from me that has a tax bill of over $25,000 a year.

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:
Am I the only one that saw that wood-tile installed wall and immediately thought about what a pain it would be to keep it clean?

I thought of that as well. What will make it even harder to clean is that it's rough cut lumber and will hang on to dust tenaciously.

Even more questionable are the rough-cut stack stone backsplashes in the kitchens, especially behind the stoves. There is no way you are going to keep that nice if you do any cooking at all.

quote:

I like the disappearing glass walls, to a point. If you leave them open, you have critters coming and going.

I'm told they have screens but I have no idea how they work.

quote:

I guess it looks cool, but I'm not sure it's actually super livable unless you are a neat freak and can hire people to vacuum and buff your walls.

I doubt the people who buy these houses do much of their own housekeeping, so there is that. In fact big houses like these are little cottage industries in and of themselves, requiring a small army of tradespeople to maintain on a regular basis.