1,321 square feet

1,321 square feet.

I used to live in a house that size. Matter of fact, the one I live in now isn’t that much bigger.

So you’ll drop your jaw like I did when you hear this.

I was out driving through the fancy new neighborhoods springing up in northwest Oklahoma City and Edmond, and came up with a new definition of obscene.

1,321 square feet.

Huh?

Yep, I stopped in front of one of these fancy new homes to get one of the description sheets from the sign out front. I play a guessing game about how much these castles cost.

The price--at the bottom of the page--was enough to gag you. $415,000! And it wasn’t the fanciest, or the biggest, in the area.

Then I started reading all the wonderful ingredients that made this house supposedly worth $415,000.

There it was, second from the top:

“Four car garage (extra long), 1,321 square feet.”

Can you believe it? First of all, the people buying these homes have children and young teenagers. So they don’t have four cars.

But if that baffles you, keep reading.

Total square feet, 4,000(not including garage).

Plus a “futures” room of 640 square feet. That’s an unfinished room upstairs in the attic that you can expand into after you find yourself a little cramped by 4,000 square feet plus the 1,321 square foot garage.

This house has 4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, a formal living room, formal dining room, a family room, a study with built in computer desk, a breakfast room, a utility room, two jetta tubs, Grecian marble showers, marble built-in bar and brass rail, large closet, cedar closet, hidden closet, marble fireplace, regular patio and balcony patio.

 Not sold, are you? I know, you'd feel a little crowded.

Remember this is in a “gated” community(today’s version of a moat) with guards and tall brick fences and a fancy name (“Oilymonde”), all designed to keep the riffraff like me out. They let me in ‘cause they probably though I wanted to contract the yard work.

But I know you think the house is scrimping a little, so there’s more, besides the landscaping and sprinkler system.

Six rooms are wired for cable. Christmas electric plugs are already outside with inside switches, and for outside ground lights. And ceiling fans, exhaust vents, alarm system, extra crown molding, wood shutters, and 34 tons of cut Ada rock on outside of house.

I know this is still beneath your standards however, so there’s one other item mentioned that will surely sell it to you.

Two drop down ironing boards.

Huh again?

Do you know anybody that would buy this house, pay the $5,000 or so monthly payment, the huge utility bills, plus the yard care, who would do their own ironing? Would you?

Not me. I don’t do ironing now. But of course, I don’t have 1,321 square feet in a four-car garage.