In the olden days, before we viewed our houses as cash machines, you used to buy a property, and move in. Six months later, you might have changed the wallpaper in the hall. Six years later, perhaps, you would have fitted a new kitchen. If you were really splashing out, you might even have put in new carpets. Nowadays, however, we spend a fortune: last year, according to a survey on household spending just released by the Office of National Statistics, Britons laid out £750m every week on carpets, sofas, garden furniture and other "decorative goods". And a house is no longer just a house. Oh, no. It's a "footprint" - to be built on, dug under and generally exploded.
"Gutting, stuffing and expanding," agrees George Ferguson, who, as a former president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, is a bit of an expert on these things. "There is a tendency to squeeze too much out of the house these days. Like all these things, how you do it matters almost more than whether you do it."
How we do it makes Ferguson tremble - and not in a good way. "Only this morning, I was having an 'I hate conservatories' chat with a colleague," he admits genially.
It's not just the clip-on conservatory that is a problem. It's everything. "Basements are a nightmare, but at least they are underground," Ferguson continues. "Lofts can be hideous. It's all the add-ons that come with them: those giant dormer windows, the changed profile of the roof. In a uniform terrace, or a square, it can be a disaster."
Our poor old houses have come to resemble nothing so much as the mule in the children's game Buckaroo, onto the saddle of which all sorts of detritus is gradually hooked, until the nag can bear the pressure no longer. Our houses don't explode with the fads we have imposed on them, but surely this is only a matter of time.
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Every morning, I pass two neighbouring houses, designed in about 1900 as a matching pair. One has seen no structural changes. The other, however, has had the full Buckaroo treatment, from loft to basement via conservatory and side extension. It has had so many face-lifts that, compared with its undeveloped neighbour, it now looks a bit like Cher standing next to Judi Dench.
People can't help this urge, say builders. It's part of modern living.
"People will just expand their houses to have the space they need," says Maggie Smith, sales and marketing director at the London Basement Company, who is fully aware that her company is but part of a developmental craze to push our houses up and out, rather like a bricks-and-mortar Wonderbra. "Quite a lot of our clients have gone up to the loft and extended that, then moved down, putting a conservatory onto the side return, then continued to go on down into the basement.
"There are so many standard-size houses around - two reception rooms and four bedrooms are not enough. And, if you don't want to move, just think of the stamp duty and moving costs you will save."
Building up, down and out is rather contagious, apparently - like yawning. "Oh, we've had rashes of basements," Smith says cheerily, before telling me about the added value an extension can bring to your home.
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I have news for her. Not all add-ons bring in the lolly. Alex Lyle, head of sales at the Fulham office of the estate agency Marsh & Parsons, despairs at what some people do with their "footprint".
"There are some houses that really push the boundaries," he says. "I know of one person who has put a basement below his basement. It's a classic case of overdevelopment, and of course he won't be able to sell it. Well, he might, but not for a premium. Another client in central London has his entire garden taken up by a swimming pool. It'll be a tough one for us to market."
You see? Bunging on this or that is not a direct route to a giant leap in capital values. You may have been told it is, but it isn't.
"There is a curve of diminishing returns with extensions," says Adam Stackhouse, the agency's head of residential development. "Agents justify their prices by calculating the square footage of a property, but don't take into account the quality of the space available. And the secondary space is often worth much less. A good mansard conversion on your roof might have the same value as the floors below, but an attic conversion won't. Pushing out from the property is also a risk, as, for most people, the garden situation is pretty dire as it stands."
So, how can we stem this tsunami of overenthusiastic overdevelopment? "There is a simple answer," says Lee Mallett, an urban-regeneration consultant and former editor of Building Design magazine. "Build more houses. Then people wouldn't be pressurised into extending their homes in an ungainly fashion. People put ugly extensions on because it's so difficult to find housing any other way."
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Well, without wishing to go all Calvinist here, perhaps our desire to bulge out of our houses can be calmed by a bit of self-discipline. After all, it isn't as though we are having large families any more (though I must admit to having four children myself). Perhaps if we were a bit more organised about what we have, became a trifle less indulgent in the hoarding department and went shopping a bit less (for anything, whether it be clothes, shoes, furniture or baths), we might not persuade ourselves that we need that loft extension or basement television lounge so badly.
As for a basement beneath a basement - can someone go and help that man? Now.