My thought at the B'more layouts I am looking at is me making a finished basement with a full bath into a large master suite, someone else living on the 3rd floor which is typically 3 Bedrooms and a full bath - we share the main floor which is living, dining, kitchen or 2 livings and kitchen.

Yes, private space plus common area sounds optimal.

I've managed to depress myself by pouring over Google satellite images of where I grew up. Still rural, more populated than it used to be, my old elementary school is some sort of car lot, the house I grew up in is replaced by another house, all traces of my house are gone, there are people living across the creek where I used to play, and the ancient trees are gone. So many car repair places along the road into town and houses with dead cars in the yards and so many places full of industrial equipment for the mine and the natural gas extractors. The passage of time sucks.

edit: but the house where my father was born 99 and a half years ago is still there.

We just discovered via google maps and National Park maps that the farm/ranch my dad grew up on and I visited as a child has become park of National Monument/World Heritage Site land and the people who bought it cannot farm the land anymore although they are still allowed to live there. No idea what will happen to the house once they pass, if it will become a visitor's building or a staff house or be torn down. I loved that house, but I am sure my memories of it are way off from what it would seem to me know.

Oh, how interesting!

Went to a late movie with a friend, for the Seattle international film festival—a black and white movie set in the late 1950s(?) about two teenage girls, one the loser outcast and one a new girl in town. Not quite what we expected (the romance wasn't between the two girls) and a little heavier than expected. Kinda bummed it was black and white because I think the costumes and makeup must have been fabulous.

The last time I checked Google satellite images, the house I grew up in is still there, still the only one on the street with an addition on the back. The trees have grown up a lot. The house where my father was born and grew up burned down around 1950 ... no idea where it would be, although I assume the town or its suburbs have taken over what was the family farm.

Meanwhile, for the Buffistas, how about a hobbit house?

You had me all excited, Toddson, but that house is not at all underground or round.

Yeah, that is not a hobbit house! I object!!

The house my mother grew up in, which my grandfather built, is definitely still there, because we drive by every year or so! And only sometimes park across the street like creepers?

Jesse, I've done that - parked across the street from my grandparents home. I'm still building up my nerve to knock on the door and see if they'll give me a tour. My dad said they'd done it up real nice and kept the essence of it which I really want to see. When I was a kid, the kitchen was still the 1930s kitchen my grandmother loved and would not change. I wonder if it is still the same.