# Individualist trends and fads: kids just phoning it in these days? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 22, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/individualist-trends-and-fads-kids-just-phoning-it-in-these-days/575631 "2011-03-22T18:14:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 99
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/individualist-trends-and-fads-kids-just-phoning-it-in-these-days/575631/99 "2011-03-27T22:08:01Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > For instance, I’m in the process of building a house–my very first house! I have a floor plan for a gorgous eco-friendly Craftsman’s style house. It’s just a little under 600 sq feet. My real estate agent has helped me in the quest for land in a wonderful intown neighborhood and we’re meeting with the builder later this week to sign the contract. The agent knows what I want and why; we’ve talked about it a million times over. And yet she’s STILL throwing her “shoulds” at me. How I “should” expand the house to 1000 sq feet, because otherwise it will be impossible to sell it > (as if that’s her problem). How I “should” make it bigger because who knows? I might get married and have children! > > I don’t fuckin’ care about selling it. I’m living in it until I die. And if my life changes such that I will be unable to live in it, I can rent it out (the neighborhood is a wrife with young artists…folks who would love to live in a “special” house). And though she knows more about real estate than I do, I call “bullshit” on her impossible remark. It would not be impossible to sell the house _because I’m freakin’ buying it_ and I can’t be the only person out there, especially now, who sees the problem of having “too much house”. This woman is in her 60s and she’s pushing a bullshit American dream on me–and she thinks I’m too stupid to see that she has a vested interest in upselling me. I wasn’t born yesterday, woman. I know your game. And I want _my_ dream, not the American one. I will expand certain parts of the floor plan to suit _my desires_. But not someone else’s. **monstro** , you’re on the right track, and good on you for sticking to it. The fact is that American housing stock collectively has too many big houses (many now vacant) and not enough small ones, especially small ones that are well-designed and well-built. And it has actually been demonstrated that houses truly tailored to a particular individual or particular family are worth _more_ on average than houses of equal square footage built to generic plans. I think what you’re doing sounds great, and I encourage you to tweak the plans, before and during construction, as much as you like to suit _yourself_, but keep it small. (If you really need more space down the road, building an addition when you _know_ how you plan to use the space is superior to building in an extra bedroom or “bonus room” now just to boost s.f.) If you like I can send you some stuff on design patterns aimed at making small houses “intense.” --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/individualist-trends-and-fads-kids-just-phoning-it-in-these-days/575631)._