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Ok even if you watch the home shows or not, Americans live to big. The living room/kitchen not big enough, the master bedroom bathroom not big enough. All I ever see or read nothing is big enough. As a Canadian I would say are you Moderator cut: language me I would love this.
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 06-20-2010 at 03:59 PM..
Ok even if you watch the home shows or not, Americans live to big. The living room/kitchen not big enough, the master bedroom bathroom not big enough. All I ever see or read nothing is big enough. As a Canadian I would say are you Moderator cut: language me I would love this.
My Canadian sister in law has a huge house in Guelph that cost more than $400,000 CAD. My house is about 750 square feet and cost $7,500.
You can't genralize one way or the other.
P.S. Mine is paid for and her's isn't LOL
20yrsinBranson
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 06-20-2010 at 04:01 PM..
Reason: Edited quoted text
Ok even if you watch the home shows or not, Americans live to big. The living room/kitchen not big enough, the master bedroom bathroom not big enough. All I ever see or read nothing is big enough. As a Canadian I would say are you Moderator cut: language me I would love this.
You are right. I lived a year in Canada and met my ex there. When I brought her to the states she could not believe the waste, the glut and the overall attitude of the bigger the better. To me I felt it was normal because that is what I grew up with. When her young boy came to the states I can remember him saying: How come every house has 2 cars in the driveway? He never heard of such a thing. 2 cars are a luxury in a city with good mass transit.
If the bigger the better then too much is just right !!!!
Remember that.
Maybe a result of the current economic depression we are in will teach us all a lesson. He who accumulates the most toys......still dies.
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 06-20-2010 at 04:01 PM..
Reason: Edited quoted text
"Americans live to work". Americans are brought up to be workaholics, and they don't know when to quit, and feel compelled to spend all they can earn plus all they can borrow.
I lived in Canada for 16 years, and I don't think I knew any two-car families. Nobody wants two cars in Canada, and in winter you don't even want one, but you have to have one, and then keep moving it all the time so they can plow.
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 06-20-2010 at 04:02 PM..
Reason: Edited out reference to deleted post
I was on another forum last year where the parents had just bought a 2000 sq foot home for $350,000 (no yard to speak of). They were looking for a bigger house - because their daughter wanted an upstairs bedroom that overlooked the lake. Their daughter was SEVEN. Yeah, Teaching her to understand the value of money already, right? One little darlin had her livein boyfriend just declare bankruptcy; she only works part time - yet next week they are going on a cruise because they are 'so stressed and need to get away'. People will beggar themselves just to live in the right now, and have everything right now that they think they deserve.
We raised all three of our children in a house that was 980 sq feet until we built in the attached garage for my mother. Tight? Yes. We also took in foster children. Everyone had a bed and was able to take a shower, and the yard was full of fruits and vegies. Just recently DH and I bought 60 acres with a 1700 square foot, 100-year-old farmhouse. It was on the market for two years, because no one wanted an old house with real oak floors and beams, when new corian and granite and carpet are 'so much better'... The house is solid and beautiful. We were sick of the brainless grasping and demand of more and bigger and better, and wanted to move to the country, so we saved our money and did without so that we could. We needed the farmhouse to process our future vegetables and milk from the future cows (it used to be a small family dairy farm). But for over 20 years we lived in 980 sq feet and didn't see a thing wrong with it.
So please, don't generalize about "Americans" - some are greedy brainless grasping idiots, and they'll eventually get what they deserve - whether or not they are aware of what they truly 'deserve'.
I don't think the average American has two cars if living in a place with good mass transit. Problem being, those places are few and far between, and are usually only major urban centers, and one must live right in the urban center. A whole lot of work has migrated from the urban centers to office parks, so people who live in town often need cars to get to those jobs.
That said, I certainly get the idea from HGTV that people want absurdly large places. Like having 2,000 sq.ft. and "needing a larger house" when a second kid is born.
I grew up with two parents and a sister in a postwar split level, about 1500 sq.ft. and managed not to become a serial killer. People I knew with more siblings even shared rooms, gasp!
I had my own house designed when I was 48 and my three-room cottage fell apart. New house is about 1250 sq.ft. I wouldn't have minded smaller, but the fixed costs were so high that it would have been imprudent not to build the upstairs loft/bedroom
Big is not always bad, especially if you can get the same thing for the same price, but conspicuous consumption, buying badly made things to just have more, and relying on credit to buy in the future what you can't afford now is more of an evil then buying something big.
What's wrong with having more than one car, anyway? We have three. We also run our business from home, so neither of us has a commute and the kids aren't old enough to drive yet.
There's nothing wrong with having choices. Just before I moved to Las Vegas, I had - living alone in an apartment - three cars and a motorcycle. Choices. Some days I wanted to take the long way to work, and rode the bike through the mountains. Some days I wanted to take the Jeep with the top down. Some days I just wanted the comfort of the sedan, and some days I took the van in anticipation of taking the gang out for lunch. Some days, I even rode my bicycle to the transit center and rode the bus to work!
It's all about having choices, and there's nothing wrong with it.
We designed and built our "dream" home. We figured we worked hard, we deserve to have what we want in our home.
Our kitchen is some 800 sq ft - and is the center of activity when we entertain. We put in a Home Theatre w/15 seats - and a Popcorn Cart
We have a Living Room/Great Room of around 1000 sq ft - with multiple fireplaces
Etc, Etc, Etc. Total sq ft is over 5K
Yes, we wanted this home to be "big", and I guess some would consider it so. BUT - it is what we wanted - and that is the key. In the United States, we can have whatever we want subject only to our ability to pay for it.
Then, there is the outdoor kitchen .......
Oh, the grocery store? Nearest one is 30 miles round trip - my office is 90 miles R/T
It's odd. I would say this attribute of American culture comes from the huge amount of land that was/still is available and 'Manifest Destiny', but you don't see similar attitudes in Canada, which has a large amount of inhabitable space.
Bigger houses and bigger cars very likely mean more per capita consumption leading to more per capita pollution. Bigger portions lead to...bigger people.
So yes, it actually is completely plausible.
And are we seriously even having the argument that the average American has a city as walkable as Paris? I almost coffee coated my keyboard after that one. Maybe people in New York, Boston, or San Francisco can make frequent grocery store trips, but most people have to go quite some way for that. And a ridiculously small amount can actually walk to one.
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