Great blog, I did learn quite a bit from it and also the book she recommends - A Field Guide to American Houses by Virginia McAlester. We usually refer to any

Great blog, I did learn quite a bit from it and also the book she recommends - A Field Guide to American Houses by Virginia McAlester. We usually refer to any newish suburban house as a McMansion, but that's wrong. Cookie-cutter maybe, but not McMansion. The defining feature of McMansions is "more is more" mindset, a very large house with a thoughtless mishmash of styles, features, textures, colours, and shapes. Most suburban houses are not large enough nor eclectic enough to be called a proper McMansion. My random suburban house for example, has a needlessly large number of rooflines, but is generally coherent and shapely.