Update: The Wife tells me that the link to this on MSNBC has gone stale. Here's the link for the original Washington Post story.

And there are a couple of letters on that story.

My Google News filters grabbed this little jewel from MSNBC. With a steady increase in prosperity and average incomes making them affordable, home sizes have steadily increased since the 1950's. I see the houses mentioned in this article every day on my commute. Towering houses, often with a brick facade and beige siding, the houses that mysteriously fell from the sky. More often than not, the yard is relatively sterile, closely clipped and empty, ten acres lonesome for its residents. They must all be at work with the kids in daycare or enjoying the media room, because they certainly aren't outside.

And so when Alyson Skinner wanted a bigger house on 10 acres in western Prince William County, there it was.

For just under a million -- and with the equity from her smaller home -- she was able to get more space for roughly the same mortgage payment to accommodate the lifestyle she envisioned for her family. Instead of going out into the world, she preferred to contain the world inside her 5,300-square-foot home.

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