Robinson Crusoe sets up his new home in a cave on a desert island and finds that by means of a chair and table, some shelves and hooks his situation looks a lot brighter.

Hallucinating, in death throes from cancer and kidney failure, an old man sees the walls around him begin to collapse, as he returns in his mind to his impoverished childhood in the backwoods of Maine.

Urban design critic Karrie Jacobs sacrifices her New York home to launch a magazine in San Francisco that was all about other people’s homes, gets homesick, has an epiphany during a Spider-Man movie, and finally comes home.

Author Jun’ichirō Tanizaki expounds on the importance of darkness in Japanese interiors in adding texture, depth, and subtle beauty to the life within.