Personal Dork Assistant

So much for Smart Growth

Of course, we shouldn't be complaining about this since this is exactly what our house is like, except our garage is more like 1.5 cars, or one car plus space for lots of junk.

Although their new abodes are frequently squeezed on lots of less than a fifth of an acre, many new homeowners want three-car garages, an upstairs den where the kids can play video games and a master bath with a tub that will fit four.

At least our house is in El Cerrito with a view of the Bay. These folks are buying houses in Patterson, Manteca, Ripon, and Los Ba�os, which is great if you're going to work in Stockton or Tracy, but commuting to the Bay Area? You might as well as live in South Dakota and jet in every day. Oh, these houses are paving over prime farmland, too. Could there be a worse way to do suburban development?

Of course, the UC Berkeley design professor poo-poos the whole trend:

These new homes are a reflection of the idea that when you get to this place where the house is the only thing, you want everything at your fingertips. That's why you want to bring the movie theater into the home. It's pretty sad.

If the professor had a clue about home theater design, he'd realize that these big new homes with the wide-open design are awful for HT. The big speakers throw sound all over the house, resonating off all the hardwood flooring and stone tile, and that's before the subwoofer kicks in. So a Real Man has to add an extra wing (maybe convert a part of the garage or basement) with proper sound isolation and space for the big TV (or a projector). A pool table and bar would be cool for that game room ambience, but that would throw off the layout for the HT, especially the rear 6th and 7th speakers, and you might need a second subwoofer to fill the extra space with bass. And in the end, after all that work, you'll still be living in BFE.