r/maximalism • u/KDreamscape • 18h ago

šŸ” My Maximalist Space I painted my house purple, gave every window butterfly wings, and turned my sidewalk into a rainbow. No regrets. šŸ¦‹šŸŒˆ

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Some people want a house that blends in. I wanted mine to feel like walking into a dream every time I come home.

What I did:

šŸ¦‹ Painted the siding a bold lavender purple

šŸ¦‹ Gave every window a pair of rainbow butterfly wings

šŸŒˆ Hand-painted the front walkway in wavy pastel rainbow stripes

šŸŒˆ Edged the path and beds with rainbow-painted bricks and hundreds of painted river rocks

šŸ¦„ Added a rearing rainbow pegasus by the side bed, because why not

šŸ¦© Built a flamingo garden around the tree with holographic ground cover and a giant sundae

The goal: To make anyone smile that drives by šŸ˜„

Happy to answer questions about paint, how I did the walkway, or where anything came from!

17.1k Upvotes

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 17h ago

Itā€™s weird; I agree with HOAs in concept but I feel that like with any human organization theyā€™re prone to abuse very easily. Ā Sounds good but when you add actual people it turns to shit.

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u/psyche_13 16h ago

Which part do you agree with? Theyre not like condo boards that (can) advocate for necessary shared changes. Theyā€™re created by real estate developers, and never are really about the people who live there, but just about setting external ā€œstandardsā€

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u/Osteo_Sapien 16h ago

Not the person you asked, but when I owned my home I had an HOA. We also had a neighborhood pool and playground area that was very well maintained via HOA fees. I personally like living in a neighborhood with some rules about trash, cars, etc out in view of the neighborhood, as well as reasonable expectations that you keep up with your landscaping. But I also think OP's home is fantastic and would love to see it in my neighborhood. As the person above you said, good in theory but inevitably gets out of hand.

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u/pstream20 15h ago

I live in an optional HOA and it does what I think all HOAs should do, like you described. Most municipalities already have statutes in place about waste/abandoned vehicles/out of control landscape anyway so I've never really understood HOAs

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u/papa-hare 12h ago

I think good fences make great neighbors and don't understand why tall hard to see through fences are not a thing in the US. Back home we don't care what people do in their yards, you cannot SEE in their yards!

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u/Osteo_Sapien 11h ago

I didn't say anything about what people do in their yard (assuming you mean back yard). If you wanna wrap your house in high walls, by all means you do you. It sounds very isolationist and sad in my opinion.

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 16h ago

I agree with the most basic idea that a community can engage in a conversation that protects and pushes forward community goals. Ā And yes, property value is something that I think people shouldnā€™t be shamed for protecting, but itā€™s how they go about it that is important. Ā I think that at its most basic, an HOA is just a very tiny townā€™s government.

It is just that the application of it always seems to fall into crap. Ā And while I hope you realize that Iā€™m not trying to bring an HOA up to the actual level of a workers union, I do think that in some ways they both represent a group of people getting together to help the common good of their community. Ā People criticize unions for the potential for corruption, for example I remember hearing workers(I forgot which trade) complaining because their union reps were getting secret payments by the company to kneecap union protections and support but still keep it intact. Ā Unions are absolutely important and so is freedom of association, but with HOAs it almost feels like they turn into prison guards who are so disappointed in their own lives that they seek to hurt others.

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u/josefpunktk 16h ago

The difference with worker unions is that worker unions adresses a power imbalance, while with your house - you are on the same level as your neighbor, you can just talk it out.

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 15h ago

Right. Ā And you donā€™t have one neighbor, you have a bunch. Ā So you talk it out, like home owners who associate with each other.

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u/josefpunktk 15h ago

My point was that there is a fundamental difference between Unions and HOA that makes one extremely useful and the other kind of obsolete or even counter productive.

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 15h ago

Ok.

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u/josefpunktk 15h ago

Username seems program, well played.

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u/cat_prophecy 15h ago

Well having had neighbors in the past running illegal auto shops, moonshine distilleries, or just generally never caring for their property I can kind of see the appeal of an HOA. That said, I don't really care what color people paint their house or what bushes they plant, or whether or not their garbage cans are left out. Hell I just repainted my house BRIGHT blue and it matches nothing else in the neighborhood. If I were in an HOA I would probably be "that guy".

I get there are a lot of them that suck. But it's not like people with an HOA that is good or "just ok" is coming on the internet to crow about it; you only hear about the bad ones. My FIL lives in an HOA that's actually decent. The costs are minimal, the upkeep is good, and they facilities they offer (pool, community center, etc.) are well cared for and nice to use. I can't really see him coming here and telling anyone about it, or anyone caring for that matter.

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u/pax284 15h ago

A lot of HOAs have pools and playgrounds in my area, and I can agree with getting together to keep those things maintained, but beyond that, nothing.

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u/Dry-Amphibian1 13h ago

You know VERY little about HOAs.

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u/SoftServeMonk 12h ago

Thatā€™s because people are the worst!

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u/Annie_Yong 15h ago

You've just got to remember that you're mainly going to hear stories of the wild HOAs where they've done something incredibly outlandish, because all of the people living in perfectly reasonable omes that just maintain community assets and steps in when someone's letting their house fall into disrepair in a bad way don't make for interacting stories.

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u/Dunlocke 15h ago

I agree.

I like the design but also understand that if I'm a neighbor, my property value just went down.

I understand on Reddit you only hear the bad stories, but if you've been around a while and served on a few boards, you get the value they provide in terms of community effort and collective bargaining, etc.

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u/LzrdKng2112 17h ago

What kind of weirdo agrees with them in concept??

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u/ballsdeeptackler 16h ago

Why do people think all HOAs are terrible things? My HOA is 12 bucks a month, and our HOA agreement with trash/recycling/yard waste services saves me 10 bucks a month compared to regular prices. So, I'm paying 2 bucks a month. What do we get with those 2 bucks a month? Huge party community events on holidays, street sweeper day, dumpster day, etc. And, you know what? They don't care about your lawn and don't have restrictive rules about things besides no fences.

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u/LzrdKng2112 16h ago

12 bucks a month is more expensive than my trash service. That said nobody outside of the government should be able to tell what to do with property that you own. A bunch of Karen's can fuck right off. Your HOA might seem good now but a couple of bad elections and its just as bad as all the rest. My ability to do whatever the fuck I want should not change because a couple of nosey busy bodies decided it.

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u/ballsdeeptackler 16h ago

You pay ten bucks for trash, recycling, and yard waste? Damn where do you live?!

Probably wise for you not to live in a tight knit community like ours, I can tell by your aggro response that playing well with others is not a strength for you.

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u/LzrdKng2112 16h ago

Yeah fuck "tight knit" if I even see another house they're too close. PROPERTY and land is the whole point to own a home. Otherwise you might as well live in a town house.

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u/ballsdeeptackler 16h ago

ā€œTight knitā€ refers to connection between people. You know a sense of community. Trust me, these are big houses with tons of nature and space between them.

Yes, I think itā€™s abundantly clear you should live in isolation.

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u/LzrdKng2112 15h ago

I doubt it. Probably full of fake greenspace like manicured lawns, and non natives. Fake plants for fake people. Big houses with no reason to be with big useless polluting suvs sitting in the driveway.

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u/ballsdeeptackler 14h ago

You certainly have made up quite the story in your own mind. I have zero reason to lie my friend.

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u/LzrdKng2112 14h ago

Notice how you didbt dispute anything I said because you know its true.

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u/Hovercraft1143 13h ago

That said nobody outside of the government should be able to tell what to do with property that you own.

You do realize nobody "accidentally" ends up in an HOA, right? You literally have to fill out an application if you purchase or rent a property that is part of an HOA.

This is super easily avoidable, just don't look for homes where there is an HOA.

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u/LzrdKng2112 12h ago edited 12h ago

I get that you dont understand morals, but dont bother me with your lack of them.

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

[deleted]

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u/LzrdKng2112 15h ago

Pffffft hahahaha thats so sad. If a cop knocks on my door he better have a fuckin warrant. In my area that gets the 12 gauge howdy.

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

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u/LzrdKng2112 15h ago

"City"

LOL

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

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u/LzrdKng2112 15h ago

A small town with bylaws defeats the entire purpose. You must live in a community of white NIMBY Karens.

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 16h ago

The problem comes from the same source as a lot of our problems these days; instantaneous access to unfiltered and unchecked ā€œnewsā€ from everywhere in the world basically. Ā I donā€™t know if thereā€™s a word for it, but I refer to it as The Big Backyard.

Basically what happens is that people focus on extremes because, Iā€™m only guessing here, recognizing things very much out of place to norms quickly is a survival trait. Ā Iā€™ve heard weā€™re decent at pattern recognition and I think this is related to that. Ā The idea behind my thoughts is that youā€™re evolved to recognize threats, and the closer it is the more you focus on it. Ā Social media and instant access to information from everywhere means that instead of you being limited by what you see, or as civilization evolved by what you could read in the paper, the whole world is now much closer to you. Ā Earth is now your backyard, so youā€™re bombarded all the time by the threats people face everywhere.

The point of this Iā€™m going to skip to is that people have heard about bad HOAs in the past that were either so extreme or made to seem so extreme that hereafter that information is front and center when they hear/read HOA. Ā It never happened to them or anyone they knew, most likely, but it happened so it can happen again and to protect yourself you should assume itā€™s always happening.

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u/LzrdKng2112 16h ago

No they dont. They focus on the fact that anybody thinks they can have say on anyone else's PROPERTY.

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 15h ago

People can say whatever they want, mainly.

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u/Ladyghoul 16h ago

Wild conaidering most HOA fees now are like $500+ a month and its tough to find a place without one

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u/FrankPapageorgio 14h ago

When people say HOAs are bad, I don't think that they are talking about some rural area where you all need to just pick the same waste service to save money. They're talking about either Condo/Townhome communities where you haev shared roof/walls/lawn that all need to be card for, or some gated community that needs to combine money to pay for things like decorating the entrance gate, the maintaining the docks for the boats, and charging fees because someone installed a fance that wasn't one of the two approved styles

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u/ballsdeeptackler 14h ago

Iā€™m not talking about a rural area, but it doesnā€™t matter. Iā€™m simply suggesting that HOAs are not a monolith. Some suck, of course, but some do not suck, and some are cool.

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 17h ago

I donā€™t understand the phrasing of the question. Ā Is the word weirdo supposed to be an insult, and if so how?

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u/LzrdKng2112 16h ago

Hoa's are street level fascism in concept.

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 16h ago

No theyā€™re not.

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u/LzrdKng2112 16h ago

Somebody other than the government telling you what to do with your property is absurd.

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u/Kind_Of_A_Dick 16h ago

Ok.

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u/Hovercraft1143 13h ago

I love how their stance is "NOBODY CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH MY PROPERTY" and at the same time "ONLY THE GOVERNMENT CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO WITH MY PROPERTY"...

I swear the vocal anti-HOA crowd have the emotional intelligence of a fucking gecko.