Homes with amazing staircases

The following are some impressive images of residential staircases.

Of course I’m more partial towards the one with a slide, but the library stairs offers a great use for storage and an impromptu place to sit and read. The last stair shown, called the Ribbon Stair, has an interesting aesthetic but is missing the one design item in stairs that most locales outside of the U.S. don’t seem to require–the handrail. (It’s not that people outside of the U.S. have better balance than Americans, they just have fewer lawyers than us.)

 

Advertisement

McMansions – Welcome to the Architectural Steroid Era

You’ve probably heard the term and wasn’t quite sure exactly what it meant – McMansion.  Is it the official residence of Ronald McDonald?  Is it a house lived in by the Scottish-Irish aristocracy?

The term McMansion refers to the very large houses that have become more prevalent in our suburban and exurban landscape.  Like their fast food counterpart for which their name derives from they are designed within a vacuum of space and time.  Their design is not influenced by site or the owner, but rather the final product is a culmination of fashion and fad added onto a floor plan that lacks innovation and efficiencies.  For a better visual of the definition just think of a 1983 Plymouth Horizon hatchback with chrome 24″ spinner wheels on it.