Why dwell on a dwelling?

Have you seen Nick Park's Creature Comforts? The original short, it's about 5 minutes long, has a lion claymation character bemoaning his cooped-upedness in a zoo saying that he needs his space. Sure, the zoo has technology, the double glazing, but he wants to have space not cooped up on an island. "Any part of the world, but HOT!! Name it, and I'll go!"

We all are like him a little bit. We all want our space. We want to feel comfortable in our homes. We want to feel calm and see all of our familiar stuff. When we go on a trip we all feel so glad to be home again. Don't we? Isn't this true?

Home is where the heart is is one saying that sums it up. But where we live also has pressures to conform to decorating styles, seasons. A friend of mine said she knows a woman who switches out furniture seasonally. Where is a jaw dropping yikes smiley when you need one? Say what???

And what is considered luxurious and well appointed in one era is not the case just a few decades later. Here is a sales brochure highlighting the charms of the house model, The Connecticut.







And here is a yurt. The yurt is a traditional dwelling used by nomadic peoples in Central Asia. It is made with a wooden lattice wall and a wool felt covering. Modern waterproof materials are used in the west.





The Connecticut was built in the late 60's where we read, "The large living room and dining room constitute your fashionable entertaining area, where sliding glass doors lead to a full functional porch, a delightful innovation for indoor-outdoor living." The sliding glass doors really let you go outside onto a tiny, minuscule postage stamp size of a porch. In retrospect, the marketing back then was cute wasn't it? You can almost see the guys with skinny ties, dark suits and slicked down hair describing the features of the house as if it too was part of the rocket age. Things had to have innovation back then to carry weight with people. Innovation--a door?

The Connecticut took heavy building equipment to be put together.






While the yurt can sometimes go up with people mirthfully singing folk songs and wearing hemp clothing like this.





The Connecticut houses my family. Our house looks very middle America suburban, filled with all of our groovy stuff, of course.

A yurt can look like this inside too.





I just think it's going to be harder to switch out the furniture--because, where are you going to store it all?