The New American Home: "No Need of Drama Anymore"

The economic boom produced the McMansion. The downturn that followed is now remaking the American home, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal from November 1, 2011 — and the direction is unmistakable: less drama, more practicality.

Builders, architects and even fixture-makers are adjusting to buyers who want functional space rather than showpieces. The formal living and dining rooms, two-story foyers, second staircases and soaring cathedral ceilings that defined the boom years are fading. In their place: open family rooms, generous kitchens, and the so-called "drop zone" — a mud-room-style landing area, sometimes as large as 10 by 10 feet, for backpacks, mail, coats and shoes.

The numbers tell the story. The median new single-family home measured 2,169 square feet in 2010, Census data shows — down from a peak of about 2,277 square feet in 2007. Homes aren't necessarily getting small; buyers just want the space they actually use to feel bigger, and the space they don't use to disappear.

"Value and need are driving the home purchase decisions, not the potential investment value," an economist with the National Association of Home Builders told the Journal. As one architect quoted in the piece put it: buyers are asking, "Why spend dollars on space I am not going to use?" There is no need of drama anymore.