Lose the Singular

Wende asks: If you could, would you buy the house you grew up in?

I really wanted to post house pictures with this, but I couldn't find any...I really thought I had some. Oh, well.

Of the houses I lived in growing up, I can remember nine. That includes several rounds of military housing, which is usually uninspired but often well constructed and highly practical - some of them I would consider buying, were location no issue and if I could replace the vinyl siding.

The house in Guam had windows that could withstand a coconut flying at 100 mph, which is kind of engineer-cool but not terribly useful most places; it was also made of undisguised cinder blocks.

The house in Italy was completely uninsulated with 12' ceilings, required six keys to get into, had a driveway pitched at 25 degrees, a basement that flooded whenever there was more than a quarter inch of rainfall in a day, electrical wiring such that you had to turn out all the lights to make toast, an arsenic-laden well, and batch tank water heaters that supplied exactly six minutes worth of shower each. Also, it was located on a dirt road with a rotating pack of feral dogs and a constant pile of burning garbage at the end, and the landlord had extremely dubious connections and took the rent in cash. By local standards, this was a really, really, really, REALLY nice living situation. I love Italy, but it amuses me when Americans get all romantic about it.

When I was in high school, we lived in the East Bay in a massive, exquisite, meticulously maintained 80-year-old farmhouse, one of several bought up by the Navy when the small town where it was originally built was accidentally blown up during World War II. It was moved and repurposed for officer housing. I estimate it was approximately five times as much house as my parents could have afforded on the Bay Area civilian economy. I probably wouldn't buy it, but only because I doubt I'll ever want to own that much house.

I could see myself buying the house where my parents currently live, which they bought while I was in college, but only if I had enough leftover funds to rapidly fix everything weird about it, like:

• the DIY stairs with unequally-sized risers (yikes!)
• the heating vents on the ceiling (huh?)
• the dining room with hardwood floors, hardwood walls, hardwood ceiling, and a small window facing the heavily wooded back yard (I've considered buying a mining helmet so I can see my dinner)
• the still-too-abundant presence of the previous owner's favorite color (OSHA safety yellow)
• the most annoying bathroom ever constructed by human hands.

Also, I would need a guaranteed source of income so I wouldn't have to find employment in the Rust Belt.