Functionally Obsolete Built-in's

"What Were They Thinking?" Department

What's worse than a home with a wall of built-in's designed to accommodate a too-small (35" or less) TV?

When the built-in's are also recessed two feet (!), because TV's of that era still had picture tubes, which had a huge footprint.

And the wall of built-in's is in a room with a vaulted ceiling, so it extends 14' floor-to-ceiling, instead of just 8' or so.

And the wall of built-in's isn't just in one home, but in 1,000 (!) that were all built in the early '90's!

Functional Obsolescence

The foregoing pretty much describes Stonegate, a 1,000 unit development in Scottsdale built in the early '90's.

While the complex has much to recommend it -- great location, well-built homes, beautiful grounds, etc. -- the developers had no way of knowing that what seemed like impossibly generous proportions for a TV less than 20 years ago would be superseded by today's huge, flat-screen TV's (and lots of them!).

Think of it as the technological equivalent of a one-car garage.

By now, you'd guess that a majority of those built-in's have been (expensively) retrofitted to fit today's technology.

On the list of holdouts: my parents, still watching their (perfectly functioning) 33", picture tube TV.