Blueprint for a New American Home

Wall Street JournalLIFE & CULTURE
2 November 2011
By S. MITRA KALITA


Blueprint for a New American Home
Expanding the Spaces a Family Really Uses; More Practical Doesn't Have to Mean Smaller
"The new American home is taking shape.

Tough recent years are leaving their mark on home design, just as the housing-boom years sent square footage soaring and stamped a distinctive "McMansion" style on neighborhoods across the country. Big home builders, smaller architecture firms and even bathroom-fixture makers are adjusting to the shift toward more practical features and away from the aspirational.

The new styles are showing up in the relatively few new homes under construction as well as in the remodeling of older homes. More people are renovating as they stay put longer.

The economic boom produced the McMansion, now the downturn is remaking the American home landscape.

Disappearing are formal living and dining rooms, two-story foyers and second staircases. There are fewer places to stick grandfather clocks, wedding china and bowls of glass balls. Plenty of space is opening up for shoes and sports equipment, schoolwork and textbooks, wrapping paper and scrapbooking supplies. And maybe even an elevator shaft, just in case Grandma moves in or Mom and Dad stay for ages.

That doesn't necessarily mean smaller homes, though median square footage of 2,169 last year remained below the peak of 2,277 hit in 2007, according to 2010 census data.

"The spaces where everybody hangs out and that they use every day are the spaces that families actually want a little bit larger," says Tony Weremeichik, a principal at architectural-design firm Canin Associates in Orlando, Fla. "Buyers are asking, 'Why spend dollars on space I am not going to use?' There's no need for drama anymore."

"Value and need are driving the home purchase decisions, not the potential investment value," says Stephen Melman, an economist for the National Association of Home Builders."
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