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What cheesy building material, style, or practice bothers you the most? How about those vinyl sided chimneys? Or acres of condos all in the same color? What about the clumsy boxed in cornice returns that are designed to imitate the neat greek revival style? Huge houses with gables sprouting all over the roof?
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yeah... love 'em all..
if it wasn't for the cheesy ... what would we have to compare our own creations to ?
*Mark,Your list matches my shot list pretty well. Here where I live and build, there is a lack of design in homes priced below 200K. Many are cookie cutter houses with different elevations for the same amature drawn floor plan. Many builders make changes to stock plans thinking they're making them better. Many times they enlarge rooms or make 2 rooms out of one and screew up the window and door placement on the elevation and don't even know it untill the house is framed up. Material peaves for me are vinyl siding, vinyl floor covering, and laminate flooring (faux wood). Tacky craftsmanship of any kind bothers me. kcoyner
*Excellant question, heres a few; sto instead of stucco, extension jambs nailed to the R.O. (with no shims) instead of to the window or door jamb directly,pre-cased doors hung with no shims,unheated garages,only 2in. case and 3in base in new homes,vinyl windows,particle board back cabinets,kitchens put in before finished floor, ANY STAIR PUT IN W/O BEING PLUMB AND LEVEL,picture frame window trim,and most of all - trim carpenters who do not use glue. These are things I see going into houses that sell for $400,000 to over a million every day. It's a crime.
*aluminum windows, finger jointed anything, non-plywood sheathing, fake slate shingles, masonite for exterior cornice or trim boards, slab foundations, 1/4" plywood for interior paneling, particle board or MDF anything, those fake wood treads that have carpet running down the middle, youngsdale cabinet hinges, those drawer guides with the little wheel in the middle, photo-wood cabinets......man, I gotta stop......I'm getting depressed.Ed. Williams
*On Thursday I stripped the caulking off a window ready to expoxy the sill and sash and prepare it for repainting. Paint is not sticking to these windows and they show aging way beyong their 11 years because everything that isn't seen (even the edges of the sash) were never primed nor painted. After the caulking was removed I started sanding the jam and the unit fell out of the opening; even the interior trim wasn't nailed to framing, only the jam. Now that's cheesy !
*Doors with no shims trimmed with MDF, MDF, base trim with 1/8" or more gaps made from MDF, MDF, guys/girls who have no clue how to use a coping saw but think so when cutting MDF, half million dollar and up houses with faux wood flooring, and vinyl covering anything, any house with the above, Bruce Pergo is a guy I'd love to slap, along with his buddies at HD who think his stuff is "The Sh*t". MDF. Hollow doors. I'm tired just thinking of the crap I hate.
*How about the forest of roof penetrations in development housing? Start with a nice dimensional shingle or better and then destroy the look completely with white PVC vent pipes, multiple exhaust fan caps (unfinished aluminum, of course) direct vent piping, a flying saucer for the attic vent fan, radon fan piping and how about a couple of B vents just for good measure?
*MDF is a lot better than the 'paint-grade' poplar you see in so many tract homes. But you have to get the paper-wrapped stuff.
*Phill - What's wrong with paint-grade poplar for interior wood trim? As far as I'm concerned it's the wood of choice. Tract homes are using finger-jointed spruce and low-end pine. You're not from a different i country or anything?
*Exactly what I'm talking about....since when does decent wood come "paper wrapped"? What ever happened to a half a million dollars being worth at least REAL wood insted of paper wrapped, pre-primed, fingerjoint, save the trees, pulp, shaped like trim?I've worked on houses that had trim you could accually take off, strip, re-finish, and hang again, looking great. Try that with MDF!
*Hey... nobody mentioned those cheesy customers , who have the money to blow on these oversized, cheesy pieces of shit, and are smart enough to have a job that pays the big bucks to buy them , but are to freakin' stupid to know what quality is, or what they are buying. God I love this country. Keith C
*Hey, this is good. All we need now is one of those home purchasers to chime in...Amy, oh Amy, where are 'ya?
*I see puckered, wavy, vinyl on $500,000 homes with fake stone and the ubiquitous brick front, surrounded by shiny vinyl fences. With the showoff size palladian inspired vinyl windows with the fake muntin bars between the panes. Maybe with a little tiny pond out front with a fake waterfall. That's cheesy.
*How about subs tearing up other subs work and not fixing THEIR screw up! Wavy vinyl siding. Crappy landscaping. Covering gravel and other small stones with straw and hoping no one will notice, then complaining when you want them to fix it. PREFAB CRAPPY MANTELS. Come on! Who thinks those look good? Boogered up material that was caused during shipping. The wood casing kit they send out for arched windows. Really, do they think we are going to glue this brittle stuff on the windows!?
*I agree with all the above but here in callas/Ft. Worth doing remodels and helping with remodels the worst thing to me is a client who buys a 40-75 year old house to "fix it up" to resell in 1-3 years for a huge profit all they really want to do is make it look "pretty" all cosmetic work. not that these alder homes don't need it but the clients overlook all the under lying problems : level/fix the foundation, water damage, rot. when it is brought to their attention all you get is "that'll cost to much", "just fix the dry wall", "why can't you retake that dry wall joint,.... again.... look it's been done before!!" (yes, at least 5 times!) well that's enough for me. David Jalovec
*Well, for one thing, it cost more in labour to make it presentable than it costs to move up to something better. ( BTW finger-jointed pine costs 10 cents more a foot around here than "white hardwood", which is mostly poplar). And the pine, either solid or joined, almost always has a much better finish as-delivered from the mill. Although I definitely have few good words to say about unfinished or primed MDF, the kind that comes with a paper surface (I think it's paper - that's what the stores say is on it) is just fine. It joins easily, takes adhesives and nails well, only requires a little sanding and filling for nail-holes, machines easily for biscuits and mitres, doesn't split when you're putting it, and, doesn't split during it's first winter because the home owner doesn't have a humidifier. Chacun son goute, I like paper-wrapped MDF.
*i Chacun son gouteIsn't that a rich man's disease where the foot swells up ???b : )
*OK Chris, you asked. The cheesy construction I hate is done by builders who cover their mistakes with drywall and siding (be it vinyl, brick, stucco, or faux stone) and then sell a piece of junk to a homebuyer who doesn't know better. You sneer at the ignorance of homebuyers, yet knowlege of construction is the BUILDER's job. A home inspection tells very little because you guys don't let us rip down the drywall and tear off siding to see what is underneath. There isn't a Consumer Reports rating different builders, though if there was I think it would outsell the auto copy. Most people buying homes don't have knowlege of construction techniques and materials, that is why we depend on the expertise of builders and inspectors to give us good quality homes. Poor or rich, nobody wants to buy a lousy home. We just have to sort through the junk that you guys build for us and pick what we can afford that works for our familes.
*The paper covered stuff is MDO, medium density overlay, and I have to agree with Amy, people just don't kow what constitutes quality buildings these days. I have people ask me constantly what to look for that constitutes a quality home. They just don't know and the HD's and Lowe's are gonna give em the pitch that the stuff they sell is tits. they see shiny faucets and what looks to be hardwood floors and figure it's quality without having one iota as to what's behind the sheetrock.
*Hi:The two story brick pillars holding up the shed roof over the entrance. I saw NONE of these two years ago, and now I don't see new construction without it. I call it the 'Home Depot Home Castle option 1'. ("ooh sweetie, it's so Majestic!")-t
*b WBA At Your Service1.Million dollar homes with no exterior window trim. The J channel is nailed right against the 1" wide frame of the window.2.K Gutter. I wish this hideous product had never been invented. I know, I know, it's on every new home built in America. It really makes me appreciate all of the older homes in our area that have the great look of half round hung below a slate roof. 3 - 100. I will spare you the rest. I don't want to be known as a depressing fart around here.
*How about all those 39 cent receptacles and switches? I KNOW some of you guys use them.
*I don't know about it being cheesy, but it seems odd to see all that heavy duty box section steel welded together at- I assume, quite heavy cost, just to support a wee a roof thingie,......of green canvas!? I usually spot such oddities at entrances to office buildings, hospitals and the like; a covered walkway deal just outside the front door. It reminds me of an afterthought, "Oh yeah. Almost forgot. Stick one o' these doo-dahs out the front fer a classy look." Then there is the 'cheesy' looking gazebo stuck out on its own in car dealers places. Four columns, no fattening in the middle of the column to allow for entasis, and a blue pyramidal tin roof deal above. Architects must laugh all the way to the bank when these punters roll up. "Hey guys. Car dealer wants a new showroom. Same as before. Plenty of brown glass ground to roof, bit of concrete Cotswold top and bottom for a change, stick in dozens AC units as normal, get the standard kit plans out, fiddle with 'em a bit, and put a green roof on the gazebo this time!" ;-) Sliante.
*i I don't know about it being cheesy, but it seems odd to see all that heavy duty box section steel welded together at- I assume, quite heavy cost, just to support a wee a roof thingie,......of green canvas!?There actualy is a reason for that. The canvas acts like a sail. It can put some pretty heavy stresses on the metal frame. If the frame is too thin, it can and will bend and/or break. Possibly coming down on someone and resulting in one of our famous several million dollar lawsuits. Cheaper to just put more money into a stronger, welded frame in the first place. Why have the awnings in the first place ??? Looks, usualy. But then there's also the fact that in some cases the business cannot get a permit for anything more permanent.
*On your #1. My problem is when the front entry has nothing. I'm not necessarily looking for a full blown portico, but too often I see a simple little stoop or small slab, with nothing above. I want a bit of roof to stand under so I can be kinda dry when I'm fumbling my keys in the rain.
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What cheesy building material, style, or practice bothers you the most? How about those vinyl sided chimneys? Or acres of condos all in the same color? What about the clumsy boxed in cornice returns that are designed to imitate the neat greek revival style? Huge houses with gables sprouting all over the roof?