Hi.

"Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo" (thetomselleck)
10/05/2017 at 20:16 • Filed to: Houses

Discuss.

DISCUSSION (46)

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:18

Big door for cars, little door for 4 wheelers.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:21

Looks more cohesive than the other stuff

CaptDale - is secretly British > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:23

Needs 3 more doors

Textured Soy Protein > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:24

Will there at least be a paved driveway?

XJDano > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:24

Must enjoy having sex in the midst of an aroma of gear oil.

awmaster10 > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:24

Cool house cool color. Is it yours?

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > awmaster10
10/05/2017 at 20:26

No, I don’t have 675k :/

awmaster10 > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:29

ill just take the garage part

HFV has no HFV. But somehow has 2 motorcycles > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:29

Hooooooo leeee

CB > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:29

I like it, but whoever parked their dirt their is blocking up too much of the driveway.

Noah - Now with more boost. > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:29

Little door:

Kinja'd!!!

Big Door:

Kinja'd!!!

Wagon Guy drives a Boostang > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:31

Needs more garage.

Kiltedpadre > XJDano
10/05/2017 at 20:32

Who doesn’t!?!

TheHondaBro > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:41

Hi.

Chariotoflove > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:43

Needs a Batpole into the garage from the upstairs room.

Jonee > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:44

I like it. Keeps all the lawn and garden equipment away from the cars. We had that set up at my house when I was growing up.

vondon302 > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:54

Yikes!

My bird IS the word > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:56

That much for a house and it doesn’t have a real driveway. sad.

Die-Trying > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 20:59

maybe i am just holding my head crooked....... it looks like it has steps to up, to go downhill on that sidewalk.......

Wacko > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 21:01

The front is missing a window on the garage part to fit with the rest of the house.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > Textured Soy Protein
10/05/2017 at 21:03

To be determined, house is only in sheetrock stage inside.

yamahog > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 21:05

I like the motorcycle door, but the uneven roof/windows are irrationally bothering me

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 21:16

At first I’m like not bad.jpg, then I see the asymmetrical roof and become all NOOOO. Jpg.

Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo > yamahog
10/05/2017 at 21:17

That’s exactly why I posted this and you are the first person to notice

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > OPPOsaurus WRX
10/05/2017 at 21:18

Look at the roof line from the garage end.

yamahog > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 21:23

()

fintail > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 21:24

Asymmetrical roofline in this case makes me twitch (no architecture). Windows might be iffy. I hope the driveway is paved. Stained shingles above hardi-plank (or whatever) siding also makes me twitch, more faux craftsman kind of stuff. Is the little garage door for a riding lawnmower or motorcycles? Does it have three different dormers? Ah, one looks to be a gabled dormer coming out of a shed dormer. OK then.

yamahog > fintail
10/05/2017 at 21:30

hello there, fellow http://mcmansionhell.com/ reader :D

fintail > My bird IS the word
10/05/2017 at 21:30

In this area, it is likely in an outlying area for that money. In even somewhat better parts of Seattle, Bellevue, Kirkland, it would probably be seven figures.

fintail > yamahog
10/05/2017 at 21:31

I check it weekly :)

It’s not Texas-bad here in the PNW, but we have our own regional quirks that come around when money and sense diverge.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever
10/05/2017 at 21:32

thats not all that uncommon.

FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 21:40

What’s up with that weird dark ring around the house half way up? Why are the tops of The garage doors higher than the bottom of the front door? What happened to the window that should exist somewhere on the lower right of the front side of the house? Others have covered the driveway and garage situation. So much WTF going on here. Do they at least own some of the wooded area behind it? If it’s a multi-acre lot I could forgive a lot of this.

wafflesnfalafel > fintail
10/05/2017 at 22:21

yeah - it’s “random dormer day” at the architect’s office.... (Looks like a kind of sideways tri-level?)

The Snowman > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 22:25

I just assumed it was an 8' and an 18' door how wide is the little one?

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > Textured Soy Protein
10/05/2017 at 22:43

They had better pace that shit. I keep seeing these houses listed with gravel or dirt/mud driveways. Who the hell does that in the PNW? You need a paved driveway and a paved road if you’re not living in the middle of nowhere somewhere properly rural. Just too much rain.

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > fintail
10/05/2017 at 23:06

It’s a three-car garage with asymmetric doors. I don’t know why they do it, aside from cheapness. I’m pretty sure a two-car door is cheaper than two one-car doors. With 3-car garages, I expect there to be a separate door for each car. I’m not as picky with 2-car garages or 4-car garages (rare, but a pair of two-car doors are acceptable there).

The mess of design elements thrown at houses since the 80s that passes for “design” is disturbing/depressing. Our house is a “craftsman”, but it’s really a decently-built McMansion with pseudo-craftsman style on the front and inside (mainly inside) with expansive flat surfaces on the backs and sides in boring painted hardboard. When your choices are limited, you take what you can get... The city we are moving to is at least 80% houses of this type mixed with dilapidated old houses that are far more expensive than their condition warrants.

You can discern how expensive or custom a home was by whether the same design and finishes are applied to all sides of the exterior (except if it’s cheap materials on all sides, then you know it was a really cheap house).

My bird IS the word > fintail
10/05/2017 at 23:18

That house in my area would be 350k tops

fintail > wafflesnfalafel
10/05/2017 at 23:25

I think it was designed on a bet. Mismatched dormers irk me. I guess I am irksome in general.

fintail > Eric @ opposite-lock.com
10/05/2017 at 23:29

I don’t know if a car can fit in the left. Maybe a Model T. I have to imagine it is for bikes or lawn equipment. I see the asymmetrical thing a lot in CA and FL. I don’t mind it, when the doors look like they can fit cars, and the architecture is so generic that it doesn’t matter anyway. This one just seems weird.

It does seem one has to find a good custom build or get really lucky to find something built in the past 30 years that looks good. It’s bad when some 70s stuff is nice design compared to modern houses. Dilapidated houses far more expensive than logic would dictate? Welcome to my world. This isn’t far from me, this is the market here:

https://www.windermere.com/listing/WA/Bellevue/10453-SE-24th-98004/67346782

I have seen the “brick front” and similar houses in the south, I see what you mean by the finishes and design. Brick in the front and vinyl for the rest doesn’t bode well.

fintail > My bird IS the word
10/05/2017 at 23:33

In my zipcode, here’s what nearly seven figures gets you:

https://www.windermere.com/listing/WA/Bellevue/10453-SE-24th-98004/67346782

Svart Smart, traded in his Smart > Dr. Zoidberg - RIP Oppo
10/05/2017 at 23:38

I want to like it, but the salt box-style roof doesn’t really work unless it’s, you know, a salt box house .

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > fintail
10/05/2017 at 23:40

We have a lot of McMansions once you get outside the core region. They’re not quite as ubiquitous as in CA, TX, NV, FL, or AZ, but they’re here if you get far enough out or encounter recent construction.

For some reason PNW cities didn’t develop (or were redeveloped) until suburban housing was popular and zoning enforced it. If we had zoning like Los Angeles did when they started growing pre- and even post-war, Redmond would still be the boonies. Seattle simply doesn’t have any high-density neighborhoods that aren’t very old or weren’t redeveloped. For this reason, in most areas anyone wants to live in (that is, not an hour or more from anywhere they might work) were built before about 1990, which makes the housing stock a mix of post-war bungalows, pure garbage (most built in the 1970s, some from the 1980s), and nice ramblers. The teardown/rebuilds are generally McMansions with modern styling...

I wish unified styles would make a comeback, but the Potemkin nature of American “culture” means that ostentatious facades and disposable construction are the norm.

fintail > Eric @ opposite-lock.com
10/06/2017 at 00:19

That’s true, even get out into Issaquah or Woodinville, and they pop up. And eastern WA, pretty common there.

I think a big part of it is population growth. It really accelerated in the 80s, when Californians migrated north, and seems to have been nonstop since. With weird zoning and apparently lax building standards, a lot of questionable material can be built. McMansions with modern styling = McModerns, common on the eastside. Sadly, these often replace quality-built postwar bungalows and ramblers, but none of the mysteriously wealthy want such small square footage, quantity wins over quality.

I think the evolution of housing style and quality might reflect socio-economic trends in general. As the middle class peaked in the 60s, maybe so did housing. With few exceptions, it hasn’t been improving since. It seems a lot of modern houses aren’t made to make it through a mortgage payoff without significant work.

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > yamahog
10/06/2017 at 09:08

Kinja'd!!!

Eric @ opposite-lock.com > fintail
10/06/2017 at 12:21

The door size is an optical illusion because we lack anything to give us scale. Count the windows on the doors since they’re the same size - 4 on the left, 8 on the right. Unless the right door is less than two cars wide, the left will fit one car. They might be taller doors than average, too.

Mind you, the confusion isn’t surprising due to the oddball asymmetry of the house. I don’t mind the long end garage (makes the house look much bigger from the front, if that’s what you’re going for), but I don’t like when they’re placed on tall/flat walls with a roof high above them because it looks weird. Of course, garages are sort of an afterthought and nobody expects the occupants to use them for anything but storage. Definitely not as a place to park cars.

I currently live on the other end of Bellevue. The house I’m in is a rambler built in the late-80s that actually looks decent (and the construction is quite solid, though it suffers from the plain back side in one area), but it was a high-end home when it was built. The modifications previous owners have made to it since then are very questionable, including the removal of many walls due to the ongoing “open concept” fad that has left it a bunch of disjointed boxes, a kitchen redesign that didn’t do anything good, and some of those super-hip fake columns that were added sometime in the 90s.

Most of the 70s through 90s stuff is disintegrating. Some 60s as well, but those seem to be among the best-built overall. It’s like the zeitgeist of each era - the mindsets of the builders/buyers, the hope for the future, the respect (or lack thereof) for the past, the respect for the land they were changing, etc, is sharply reflected by the houses they built in these eras.

fintail > Eric @ opposite-lock.com
10/06/2017 at 14:52

It still seems kind of narrow to me, the dolts around here would be knocking mirrors off their car left and right. But for a motorcycle, well played, I guess. Not sure why two equal doors wouldn’t work, though. There’s that symmetry thing again.

The garage located where it is puts a windowless void on the front of the house. Not pretty - but it seems aesthetic isn’t a feature of most modern construction, aside from foam columns and weird trim. I am sure it is nice inside though, well, it ought to be for the price in what is likely an outlying area.

I knew a guy who had a big 60s tract house in a development off of 164th. Large place, around 3000 sq ft. Heavily renovated in the early 80s, and wasn’t wearing it well. His family bought it cheap, and he sold it cheap, he moved away as the market was bottoming out. I suspect it would bring 750-800 today, and that’s needing work. I don’t see the value. An unmodified pristine original house would be far cooler. My grandmother lives a little south of here, in an early 60s subdivision of about 35 houses, all on quarter acre lots. The neighborhood has held up, 3 original owners still on her street, and I couldn’t afford to buy there. The house, a modern style rambler, has mostly original finishes. I’ve told her not to renovate anything, just keep it pristine as she has for 50+ years. I’d rather have that, which has become cool and timeless, rather than what is trendy now.

There’s definitely a reflection of attitudes in buildings, both in style and quality. We’re in a cynical time now and have been for a while, and look what is built.