McMansions 101: Roofs

Most people think of roofs as simply being expensive hats for houses. Not so! The aesthetic purpose of a roof is to tie together all of the individual pieces of a house making it one unit. Seems simple, right? Not so!



Most people when they hear the word roof think “gable” - however there many other different roof shapes than the mere pointy triangle one. Essentially, roofs come in 6 basic shapes:

There are other shapes too - but those are more often than not associated with a specific region or time period. Let’s just stick with the 6 for now.

Aside from shape, there is also roof pitch which describes how high or tall a roof is. Roof pitch is often determined by factors like climate - for example, homes built in places that get a lot of snow will have steeper pitches than those built in Miami, FL because the snow has to fall of the roof rather than pile on top of it, which can lead to total catastrophic failure. Another factor affecting roof pitch is architectural style - some styles, such as the Gothic Revival, are identified by their steep roofs.

The roof is probably the NUMBER ONE way to tell a normal house from a McMansion.

Here are how McMansions totally foul up a roof:

1.) McMansions use more than 2 roof shapes on the front elevation

2.) McMansion roofs are way too steep or large for their facades

3.) McMansions have insanely complex roofs with several different pitches.

Roof Rule No 1: 2 shapes, and 2 shapes only (on the front elevation)

Literally 90% of house roofs are either gabled or hipped. Like seriously, go out for a walk and look at the roofs. Gables and hips, y’all, gables and hips.

Before we bring in the offenders, let’s look at some happy houses:

Here is a happy house with one roof shape: cross-gabled. (A house with a side facing gable intersecting with a front-facing gable is called a cross-gabled house.)

Here is a happy house with two roof shapes:

The use of similar roof shapes in the house above unifies the facade and establishes architectural rhythm.

But y’all aren’t on McMansionHell for the little happy houses. Let’s be honest: we’re all here for fugly house comedy hour.

This is what it looks like when you use more than two roof shapes:

Look at what a hot mess this house is. It’s totally visually confusing. Your eye is immediately drawn to the roof rather than the ground floor, or the front door. There is absolutely no vertical nor horizontal balance whatsoever.

Here’s another example:

Also, why tf is the roof on this house nicer looking than literally the rest of the house. I mean it makes sense I guess, if your house is all roof and no house.

Also: no, you’re not allowed to laugh at the term “jerkin head.” Architecture is serious business®

Roof Rule No. 2: THE ROOF IS NOT THE HOUSE

A house’s roof should always be balanced to the facade. This seems like common sense, and in a lot of ways, it is. The wall should be the part of the house the eye should be primarily drawn to. Pitch plays a large role in this. A low pitched roof will almost always draw the eye to the wall first.

When a roof’s pitch exceeds an angle of 45 degrees, you’re most likely entering the DangerZone - unless, of course, you’re building replica Chateaus/Queen Annes/Gothic Revivals, which I guarantee you most builders are not.

Here are some examples of different roof pitch angles:

I don’t know about you but my eye goes right to that front entryway. It almost makes that stupid patchy stone forgivable.

Perfectly reasonable.

Anyways, high pitched gables are relatively rare even on McMansions, but high-pitched hipped roofs? Dude. It’s bad.

Here’s a teachable moment

Don’t you just want to shave the top of that off so it matches the rest of it? I mean, just take some scissors and have yourself a cathartic snip snip? Anyone?

Pitch isn’t the only way these roof-houses can offend. A house doesn’t have to have a steeply pitched roof to still be, well, all roof and no house. And, it doesn’t have to be one story either.

But a lot of what happens with McMansions boils down to the third rule:

Roof Rule No. 3: K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple, Stupid!)

Ok, simple roofs work for a reason. It’s nice to see a house unified under one cute little house hat.

You simply don’t need a million rooflines and gables, and all that other silliness. A good design is cohesive, and the roof is the glue that ties it all together.

However on McMansions, the roof is more like the duct-tape that is barely holding your crap together.

But why? Why are they like this??

They have such ridiculously convoluted rooflines because Mommy wanted cathedral ceilings in the master bath, and daddy wanted attic space to store the things that remind him of the joyous life he once led, and Jimmy wanted a “game room” that he and his buddies could clandestinely smoke dank weed in.

These rooflines are the end product of what happens when one designs their house from the inside out based on what one thinks other people will be impressed by rather than one’s personal needs.

In fact, McMansions are so bad at doing the whole roof thing, that they have developed an architectural feature all their own, something I like to call the McMansion Nub.

What is the McMansion Nub?

It’s mommy’s master bedroom with the cathedral ceilings, but on the outside.



Wen you’re trying to join so many different roof shapes or forms together, you end up with the Nub. One of the conditions of a Nub is that the desire to shave off the Nub to create a more streamlined and reasonable roofline should absolutely consume you.

Well, I think that covers everything roofs for today (read: I can only withstand so much suffering.) Stay tuned tomorrow for Roofs Part 2, where I cover dormers!

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