The Other Extreme – Old & New McMansion Comparison

I know this is a bit off topic, unless you consider the study of opposites on topic lke I do. I found some big homes in the old house plan archives on Sears Archives website along side the small homes it occurred to me to compare a modern McMansion with an old Sears Kit McMansion. Of course I imagined that the modern McMansion would look far larger and was a little surprised to see how similar the footprints were.

The image on the left is a new McMansion currently available from a nationally known builder and it’s about 3000 square feet. The house on the right is the Norwich (1936) from the Sears Archives. Both houses have a similar number of bedrooms, two floors, and a two car garage. I’ve cleaned up the images, re-sized them, and added my own labels in an attempt to make it an accurate comparison.

What strikes me the most isn’t the difference in overall house size but how the homes illustrate how differently people are living today. For example there is no master bathroom and the closets are much smaller in the older design. The bathrooms in the older house are also much smaller as well as the kitchen. The new home also makes maximum use of the footprint with a full second floor.

I’m sure there are many more conclusions and theories one could draw about how American society has changed in the last 70 years but instead of going there how about I just leave you with the interesting comparison above to ponder yourself. It made me think. Click the image for a closer view.