Houses come in all shapes and sizes. And saying all is likely not too far off from being accurate. Mathematically speaking, there are an estimated 2.3 billion houses on this planet. There’s bound to be at least that many different shapes and sizes of them. At the very least, there’s quite a bit of variety. Let’s leave it at that.

And it’s not just the number that’s baffling, but also the variety of houses. While everyone agrees on what a house is in essence, every house is still a result of a number of factors, ranging from taste to function to practicality, all falling somewhere on the spectrum of subjective to objective… the possibilities for house manifestations are endless at this point.

Houses can be unorthodox for a number of reasons. With older ones, it’s a historical legacy that might define what it is. Like this one house in Missouri looks like any other ordinary house, save for the fact that it has a very functional jail in it. Apparently, back in the late 1800s, the house was built for the town sheriff and thus was equipped with 9 cells, just like firefighters would live in fire stations.

Some houses are actually castles. Yep, this family-sized castle, dubbed the Helmer castle after violinist Max Helmer, in Michigan was listed for sale and sold for a bit over $500,000 back in 2021. Sure, you might not necessarily be a king or queen (or are you?!) but you can still enjoy a bit of medieval luxury.

With some choices of homes, it seems like the architect simply hit the Generate Randomly button and called it a day because there isn’t much that you can say if you have a mini golf course, cave interiors, a Marilyn Monroe theme, unconventional elevation, or even a merry-go-round running in your house.

OK, so, historical legacy and maybe having too much money aside, there’s always the reason of taste. Considering there are over 8 billion people out there, each would have something that they’d want in a home. Again, taste doesn’t really explain why there’s amusement park equipment inside your house, but I guess you can’t argue on matters of taste.

Yet, other homes are built to serve a particular function. This does overlap with the idea of having a literal jail inside your basement area, but it’s in general an idea of a house being useful as more than just a home. A portion of your house can be dedicated to a venture (a bakery or store front) or even be designed to be rented as a film set or studio. In fact, there’s an entire profession dedicated to scoping these places out.

Whatever the case is, if you boil it down to the bare bones of the definition, you can practically say a house is just a place to keep your stuff. Well said, George Carlin.

So, that is ultimately the function of a house—to keep your stuff. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that, and that is fine.

And speaking of stuff, there are a number of recommendations for things to have around the house—like, absolute musts. So, you can get by with essentially under roughly 100 things at your house, including furniture, appliances, tech, tools, and other conveniences. And while you can minimize it by skipping some accessories, emergency-related things like alarms might be mandated by law, so keep an eye on that.

And if you can’t afford a house and have no idea what you’re doing in this listicle, why not share the confusion with everyone else in the comment section below. Otherwise, leave your takes on the houses seen here and hit that upvote button, and then move on to another article on the same topic.