This house belongs to a very well-off potter in a southern city. As you can see, his house is built very close to its neighbors' - houses the walled cities, due to the finite space available, are packed in very tight.This potter probably started out in a one-room house with a dirt floor and expanded as his business grew. Half of the house is now the workshop and the other half is where the family lives - the two share a courtyard. In itself the house isn't large - four rooms - but it's tiled and note that the family sleeps not on bedrolls but on rugs as the rich do. This is perhaps the greatest indicator of the potter's success. The children sleep in one room, while the parents have another, accessed through the courtyard. The main living space is a dining/sitting area, and the kitchen is a separate area off the side of the house. Though it's not obvious from the picture, the house is situated so that the living space and the children's bedroom is facing the street; this allows the family to leave their doors open and still retain some degree of privacy.
The workshop side of the house still has the dirt floor with which it was originally built. It's full of clay, worked and unworked, and the kiln fills up with pots waiting to be fired. It's connected to the living portion of the house only through the courtyard. Though the business belongs to the man of the household, the whole family probably works the clay with him and helps in the business - sons and daughters alike.
My thanks to Ane, Jerson, Hamana, Kazha, Ytry, and Zera Pafala for use of their beautiful home as an example.
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