Work space can be added economically

Mary Cordes, 85, of Hayden Lake, Idaho came out of retirement only two years after ending her lifelong career.

"I closed down the art gallery and framing shop I had run for 25 years back in 2006, thinking it was time to retire, but retirement just didn't agree with me," she said. "I went stir crazy."

So she decided to open a new art gallery on a smaller scale. It was originally supposed to go up in her backyard, but instead ended up on the site where her old home once stood.

"I used to live in a house on beautiful Lake Coeur d'Alene, but it burned down in 2005. We were planning to rebuild, but then my husband died and it became too much for me to handle on my own, so I changed my plans."

Before the fire, she had planned to set up a backyard pottery studio next to the lake inside a yurt -- a portable, tent-like structure with circular lattice walls and a cone-shaped roof supported by rafters that meet a center ring. But with the house and her husband gone, she decided to make it into something more: an art studio/gallery.

The majority of people who purchase a yurt are putting them on vacation properties and some in remote areas where they were only going to be used for a portion of the year. However, Mark Altmann of Rainier Industries, a leading manufacturer of yurts, indicates that recently there have been a lot of people buying them to expand living space.

"They make a lot of sense from a cost savings perspective," Altmann said. "Starting at just $5,500 for a 16-foot structure, they are an affordable alternative for people who want to add living space, but are on a tight budget." The average home addition now costing upwards of $78,000, according to Remodeling magazine's 2007 Cost vs. Value Report.

Cordes spent about $15,000 on the Eagle Yurt she purchased from Rainier in late 2007.

The structure is 30 feet in diameter, which offers plenty of room for her gallery.