Essay 10— The Second Question

As I approach the house I see its scale. Heavily cubed and outrageously plain in shape. 

The closer I get, the more I notice.

The first thing I see is the mechanical units housed prominently on the front facade of the home. Strange, yes. But at least they’re obstructed by some decorative metal housing which runs the vertical length of the facade. At an angle, the decorative metal obscures the units fairly well. 

But at a more straight-on angle, they’re clearly visible.  

As I enter the home, I’m faced with a two-story living area that’s nearly 30 feet high.

Limewash everywhere. 

If I squint, it looks great.

The living area features rectangular bump-outs climbing up the two-story wall. It feels like something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but I’ll forgive it.

In the kitchen, I see an entrance to the scullery. it intrigues me.

As I enter, a large mass of cabinets and countertops unfolds. The space continues for about 20 feet and simply dead ends. I immediately start picturing caterers bumping into one another during a party as they try to enter and exit, arms loaded with trays of food. Not only this, but the lighting placed at the rear of the upper cabinets is so close to the wall that it highlights every imperfection. 

I shudder. 

As I move to exit the space, I have an awkward encounter with a couple trying to simultaneously enter. 

The prophecy foretold.

Past the kitchen, I enter an oversized two-piece bathroom. The space is large enough to be a bedroom. I tried to make sense of the space. What could have been the intent here? The only thing I could come up with was that it was meant to hold a seating area… as superfluous as that was. 

The sink is a very cool concept. It’s a black suspended sink which ran wall-to-wall, and sloped gently from one side to the other. The black faucet is placed on one end, and the drain on the other.

Anyone who’s lived in Arizona for any amount of time is aware that our water is very mineral-dense. Even with a water softening system, a forward-thinking plumbing rep will steer you away from black-finished faucets. The amount of upkeep required to maintain such fixtures isn’t for the faint of heart. Wiping the fixtures often is a must, as well as other scheduled finish maintenance.  And if the finish does become damaged due to hard water, such damage is most often not covered under the manufacturer warranty.

What stunned me in this room is that the house hadn’t even been lived in, and the sink was already showing calcification.

By this point, I’m dumbstruck. I’ve seen enough and I haven’t even visited the second story or the guest house. 

One of the gravest offenses was the wall finish. The home was covered top to bottom in limewash. 

Generally,  I’m a fan of limewash. But it needs to be considered carefully, not slapped into a spec home in which you have no idea who the end user will be. 

Every wall looks like it’s one coat shy of what’s needed for a solid finish.  The light switch covers and outlets are made to be finished in the same limewash but the workmanship is increasingly sloppy. 

What’s more, as I continue to look around the home, I realize there are no baseboards. The drywall runs straight down to the flooring. 

What happens when a vacuum bumps up against it? What happens when a wet mop does? 

Have you ever been in a commercial space and seen that perma-dirt line at baseboard height from all the mopping, sweeping, and general wear and tear? 

As I move upstairs, it’s more of the same. The second floor rings hollow as I walk on it. It feels like the entire second story was made of popsicle sticks and papier-mâché. 

The closer I look in this home, the worse it gets. The limewash, the black fixtures, the oversized powder room. The dead-end scullery. The upstairs that managed to ring hollow even though the whole home was trying so hard to exude a monumentally monolithic feel. 

Now for some whiplash. 

Some of it was genuinely good. 

The kitchen cabinets were of nice build quality, and the laundry room not only had a window, but a wonderful dog wash with stairs that popped out from the base cabinet in front of it. 

There were a sauna and cold plunge in the primary bath which were beautifully integrated. 

All these things were solid design.

As I walked through, I tried my hardest to imagine the design side of this. What their concept and documentation might have looked like. 

A warm neutral palette, some architectural touches, interesting ideas, and subtle textures. Nothing in my mind’s eye screamed this was going to turn out terrible.

The frustrating part about all this is that the creativity was there. Someone had real ideas.

So why did the whole home feel half baked? 

As I walked through, one thing kept ringing in my head… “This feels like a Temu Villain’s house.”

This is something you NEVER want someone to think when hoping to sell for eight figures. I mean, truly. 

While this house had no shortage of ideas, they all stopped at the first question. 

The first question being, Wouldn’t this be cool?

And yes, all of it was pretty cool. 

But then what?

What happens after a year? Five years?

Who's actually going to maintain these finishes?

The scullery is a beautiful example. It’s a huge space with tons of storage. Great in theory. But what about when there are multiple people working back there? How does the flow work? The single entry isn’t particularly wide either.

The decorative screen around the mechanical equipment? A great idea. I love it. But what about when I can still see the equipment? 

Giant powder room? Very posh. But couldn’t that square footage be used better elsewhere? 

The first question is what blooms the idea, but it’s all the questions after that really drive the design home. 

Having an idea isn’t the hard part. We see it time and time again on half-baked flips. 

As I walked the house, left, and continued pondering... Because let’s face it, this house still haunts me as I write this, I tried not to blame the designer. 

I don’t know what happened here. Maybe the drawings were wonderful.

Maybe substitutions were made by the builder.

Maybe the designer wasn’t retained through the build to keep an eye on design intent. 

Hot take, but a drawing isn’t the finished work. 

But what do I know? Literally nothing about the drawings or execution of this home except for what I walked through as a “finished product.”

What I’m most upset about is the seeming lack of care beyond the initial question of, “Wouldn’t this be cool?”

How will this actually get built? 

What roadblocks might the trades come up against?

Will they know that if we put lights this close to the wall, their drywaller will have to be on their best behavior because we WILL see every imperfection?

If we decide a black faucet is the pick, great. BUT WHAT COMES NEXT?
If we decide we want a 20-foot scullery, great. But what problems can arise?

That’s what makes the difference between just having an idea and fully resolving a design.