What is a Yurt?

You may be asking "What is a Yurt?" Here is the definition according to dictionary.com.


Yurt
nouna tentlike dwelling of the Mongol and Turkic peoples of central Asia,consisting of a 
cylindrical wall of poles in a lattice arrangement with aconical roof of poles, both covered in felt and skins.

                                      (Here is a picture of the kind of yurt that we have, but this one is not ours.)  

More specifically our yurt is from Pacific Yurts. It is a wooden framework covered with a vinyl roof and sidewalls. Yes it does have insulation, yes we will have indoor plumbing, and yes you can have air conditioning in it as well. It is really a shell that you can do what you want with the inside. A blank canvas if you will. 

In the future we would eventually like to purchase land of our own, and the great part of a yurt is that we can pick it up and move it with us. One of our goals is to be debt free and this is one way that we can accomplish that goal. Right now we pay a huge chunk of our budget for a big house that we only use part of, and the bank owns more of the house than we do. 

When I really got to thinking about how much of our house we really use it was surprising to me. We mainly use the kitchen (where I spend a good chunk of time), bedroom, and a living area. The rest of the house is just filled with, what I am finding to be, a bunch of junk. 

I am ready to simplify my life and take it down to the minimum. What do I really need and what can I do without? This is proving to be a big challenge for me and I am willing, although my husband would say reluctantly, to take on that challenge. 

So now that we know what a yurt is and why we want to live in one, I can get back to the adventure!

Next time the story will continue with how we came to own our yurt and how we brought down the house.