Roseville, CA

Nothing in this world is a better metaphor for what politicians and marketers like to call “The American Dream” than the Californian tract house. Imagine - you too, could have your own sloppily put together plot of land on a nice street lined with other sloppily put together plots of land.

But you, of course, want your sloppily put together plot of land to be different from the sloppily put together plots of land of your peers. Now, your houses may have been built at the same time with the same plan by the same builder, but damn are you not determined to find a way to stand out from the crowd.

Finally, after the nth hour of HGTV, it dawns on you: the windows.

You start looking at your peers’ windows, noticing their soulless, contemporary, division-less forms. You make one of your tri-weekly pilgrimages to Home Depot and notice the one type of window that none of your neighbors have managed to use yet: the prairie window.

Now, there is a reason your peers have not used the prairie (sometimes called the ribbon) window. Your peers seem to be aware of the fact that they are currently living in California and not the Midwest. They may also, perhaps unintentionally, be aware of the fact that Prairie-style windows do not belong on their Pseudo-Mediterranean Tract Houses®, as there are no prairies in the Mediterranean.

However this, of course, does not deter you, and alas, here we are.

I firmly believe that this 4 bed/5.5 bath house, built in 1999 and currently on the market for $1,695,000 would be, although ugly, completely forgettable if it weren’t for those stupid, stupid prairie windows. Because of those windows, this house now personally offends me. Seriously, I searched through pages of real estate listings, eyes glazed over, and this house literally made me say out loud in the real world: “Aw HELL naw.”

So, without further ado, let’s start our lovely tour with:

The (obligatory 2-story) Entryway

My favorite thing about this entryway is that the wall of the arch has so much stairway closet potential, and yet…

The Living Room

The crown moulding keystones are particularly egregious. Also, where did they manage to find the world’s only burgundy piano?

The Dining Room

“We’re having a liquidity crisis!!!”

“Um, sir, that’s not what you call spilling wine on the floor.”



The Kitchen

That kitchen made me forget that we were in California and not Texas for a second.

Living Room No. 2

One of these days I’m going to write an essay titled “Antiqued Bronze and the Pre-Recession Illusion of Family″

On a more positive note, I rather like Thomas Kinkade - especially his early work; you know, before his Glade® Scented Candles Phase really took off.

The Game Room

I didn’t meantion the wall color, because c’mon, that’s just low-hanging fruit, y’all.

The Master Bedroom

AKA where mommy fantasizes about Thomas Kinkade.

The Master Bath

If this doesn’t say ‘tract home bathroom’ I don’t know what does.

Bedroom No. 2

I feel so sorry for this kid. (P.S. Do you like how I kept the high-school crush gender neutral??)

Bathroom No. 2

Alright, now let’s take a look at the back, always the most entertaining part of our weekly tours…

That concludes our tour of rosy Roseville, CA. I hope you enjoyed this week’s Certified Dank™ McMansion (at least ironically). Be sure to stick around for Sunday’s Post: McMansions 101: Roofs!

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Copyright Disclaimer: Photos are taken from screenshots of real estate aggregator Redfin.com and are used in this post for the purposes of education, satire, and parody, consistent with 17 USC §107.