Well this got dug up, moved out of the hot rod shop back to my farm. The building I'm living in and paid for part of to be built is a "shop" but we ordered it without a garage door, just a simple place on the farm to live in. Due to family problems, I'm looking to move. I need a shop again. There are a couple places I'm looking at, one is an closed chevy dealership. I don't want to say old, because it's one of the new remodeled ones that GM put on the chopping block. May be more money than I want to spend though. Plus it's in the city. The small town I live near, my former boss is looking to sell the grain elevator. The elevator doesn't work anymore, they got a nice shop, a very large building that was used for grain storage, but would make a very nice storage shed, and I'd probably live in the offices of the elevator and be able to fit 2 or 3 cars in the drive through part for dumping trunks. Could probably get it cheap because I know what they got the property for when it wasn't all run down.
I recently bought a 4.88 Posi third member for a Chevrolet, from a guy in Burien, Washington, right next to Sea-Tac Airport. He lives in a brick house with special windows for the airport noise. Then, he has a two car garage just separate of the house, then has a 4 car garage next to it. Then there's a pair of apartments above another 2 car garage on the far edge of his property. Almost the entire area is paved, except for a small yard. Now, he does'nt live in a garage/shop, but he has far more square footage with the garages than he does with his house. There was an article in our local paper recently, about a company doing business in Mexico, using shipping containers and turning them into "homes". Entire neighborhoods done this way. You could stack them, have a shop/garage below, and a home up top. I really like the idea of an old firehouse, or even schoolhouse, but cost would be prohibitive. So, I'll just have to keep our Rambler style, 3 br, 2 bath, single car garage house, with my 22 X 24 foot garage/shop in the back. At least it's paid for. Butch/56sedandelivery.
A guy in our area had an old 2 story building in a downtown area of small town. Upstairs, he kept about 12 cars along with his toy colletion. Mainfloor was his bodyshop, parking for another 10 cars. On the main floor, he built a good sized apartment. A log cabin, from the inside, you felt like you were out in the woods, even had a fireplace. After awhile, They felt closed in, needed more windows.
I've lived in all my shops. Some with no water or heat. All with huge roaches and roof rats. You have to be sneaky though. I saved convenience store coffee cups to pour my coffee in, so when customers beat on the locked doors in the morning, I looked like I had just walked in from the store. My girl enjoyed the walk of shame in the mornings, with the other tenants looks. SNEAKY is the key!! Water hose showers a best for the summer months. A hot plate and metal buckets work for the winter. Hide all evidence of your existence sleeping there...before you go to bed. Leaving a towel to dry over an A Model grill, with bath soap beside it is hard to explain. And bring NO food or drink into your room, or the rats, roaches, or ants will be your mother.
i had a shop in southern cal. back in the 70's ..and was single ..i lived in my shop for 5 years .. it was great ..restaurant across street..worked on things till i was too drunk to keep going,, than fell out in the shop.. quite a few guys lived in there shops at that complex .. great parties .. don't know if i could get wife to go for it now days ... MAN I MISS THAT SHOP ... thanks for reminding me ...a space over the offices makes a great little place to live ..
I knew a family that registered a business and moved into an industrial building next to a buddy's machine shop. I heard that it was fixed up ok inside. I used to run into one lady that lived there at the local 7-11, she was fond of buying a big plate of hot dogs for "dinner" for them all when there was a sale going on. If my wife did ever dumps me, given all the machine shop equipment and tools I have, I'd have to do something similar. Get a shop with bigger office space than usual. I'd have to plumb up a shower stall and otherwise make it comfy enough, but give me some separation from the shop area. Bob
My air compressor kicking on and waking me gets old. You need a cozy place away from it,,you know,,just to be normal for a while.
I don't live in a shop, but sure would if I could talk the wife into it! I've got a friend who bought an old dealership building and built up his dream shop. While he was building the shop he bought a great big camp trailer and moved it into the building. Once he finished getting the shop where he wanted, he decided he could live forever in the camp trailer with no problem, so he never did build living quarters. Of course he's got an advantage over me; he's not married.
I built my shop 2 years ago, office with a fireplace, bath w/shower in the first bay, along with refer, washer & dryer. I park my motorhome in the bay, plugged into the electrical all winter. During snow storms or other reasons not to make the drive home, the shop becomes my second home. Also doubles as 'camp roughing it' during deer season.
I've been living in mine for almost a year now. It has been a shift in lifestyle. I'm currently renting a 1200 sq ft shop. The plan always was to live in it but after I lost my job I figured I could pay the bills doing my hobby for other people's money. 10 straight months of this has lead to the following: a) having no money and a maxed out credit card b) paying bills late c) not having time to work on my own projects d) my living space being approximately 100 sq ft and sleeping on the floor (I DO have a shower though!) e) no kitchen and eating lots of fast food as a result (can't go on like this!) Personally, I'm looking to either double my space by renting the unit next to mine or moving back into an apartment while keeping the shop. I think I need to find a steady job and treat this as a hobby for a while. My personal problems aside, it makes a lot of sense economically if you have a large enough shop to portion out a suitable living space. You only have one set of utility and phone bills, a SHORT commute, CHEAP rent. You still always have the problem of separating the different aspects of your life. I'd say if you're using your shop as a business, you might end up shooting yourself. If it's purely personal and for hobby use, it's probably pretty fun. Right now I'm leaning towards the latter. If you have pets, it kind of sucks to not have a separate domicile to keep them in. Animals' innate habits don't mesh well with car projects. Cats like walking on cars, sometimes getting inside them and scratching. Dogs are always lying square in your path while you're moving something heavy and awkward. Both get hair everywhere. If you're ever doing paint work or anything else that produces toxic waste and/or fumes, it might not be a good idea to be sleeping in the same building, even if the living space is walled off from the work space. I've spent nights sleeping on the floor next to my front door with the mail slot propped open while urethane paint is drying on a car in the other end of the shop with the exhaust fans running. All these problems can be overcome with enough money. Right now if I imagine building my dream shop, it has a lounge type quarters where I can hang out with buddies or take breaks from working. Possibly crash there from time to time when I'm working late on a project. But I think I'd still like to have a separate, "normal" place to live close by, within a couple miles or so. That may have all been a bunch of malarkey but i hope it had some good insight for people thinking of doing this.
Modernbeat wrote: Ok sorry I didn't read this before and I kind of reiterated some of the things you said. I imagine that if I owned a 19,000 square foot building I would do whatever it took to make the live/die situation work.
I thought I had posted on this thread before. I will try again. I live in an 8000k square foot shop. I have a 2 story apartment that takes up a 25x40 foot print in the shop. It is not for everyone, but I have a vasectomy, a stripper pole, slate tile, acid stained concrete, maple hardwood floors and my dog just died. It is a little different from living in a house. I enjoy it, but I spent 12 years in a 2000k sqft house with a detached 1500k sqft shop with a lift. For me it was the next step.
I spent a lifetime "resedentially challenged" in a shop (barn ),I own 3 motor homes, one for hunting,full of cammo & ammo, one32'er in Arrazona for winter tin prospecting, and our local swapmeet trailer puller. WE sleep most nites in our 42' grand banks motoryacht across the street from our buisiness http://www.vessel-assist-nw.com/index.htm follow the various links ,check out my hotrods,harleys n boats
I didn't own it. It was a sweetheart rental I got from a friend who didn't need it for a few years. When his business picked up, I moved on. The thing I disliked the most was tracking filings from the "work" area into my "live" area. I didn't paint at that place and used a non-solvent based parts washer. So fumes usually weren't an issue. The next warehouse was 33k square feet, but most of it was subdivided for artists studios. I kept a 4k foot shop space and a 1k foot apartment for myself. I also had about 12k square feet of outdoor concrete apron to part projects on.
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