I heard this tune at a pub session the other night, and I thought it quite relevant to this thread: (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYIO101UGYw)
We've been in the same house in Vancouver for 4 generations now. Every time I do some work on the house or in the yard it turns into a personal archeological project - notes written in charcoal in the wall, the clinker heap from the old wood stove, tools my grand-dad lost....
Coming from umpteen generations of Engineers (by temperment, if not always by schooling) we've been keeping a 'physical-plant' book on the place since 1920.\
As to what modern folk are willing to put up with....my grandfather's army pension barely covered the taxes, so when the house came down to me it was all original (I stress the 'all' part) with the original coal-fired boiler, single-paned windows and only having had two roofs since 1905. It's coming back, paycheck by paycheck....and when the kids and I find ourselves in an 'antique' shop or in a museum we play the 'how many things in this room do we use daily' game. They're probably the only schoolkids within a thousand miles who use a candlestick phone...