Ditto! Family tradition is that we listen to the record and watch the movie on Thanksgiving. They used to play the song on the radio on Thanksgiving day, never hear it anymore. On the subject of living in your shop, if it's your place of business that's a different story entirely! I know a retired/divorced hot rodder who built a shop with an apartment. It's homey and has windows and a separate entrance but walk through the other door and voila you run into his '32 coupe! He's living the dream, no regrets as far as I can tell.
"Alice's Restaurant" is played at noon on Thanksgiving Day in many radio markets. If all else fails, there is iHeart Radio. One of the local Hudson guys has a pretty cool car barn with a three-room apartment above the shop. Off the front, there is a nice balcony patio upstairs. He's a widower who spends all his time chasing parts and working on his Hudson pickups. Pretty nice layout he has there. If I were to have a shop/house, his would be my pattern.
Years ago I went to party (about 300 people) at Jerry Brewsters house in Bastrop Louisiana. The governor of the state was at the party. Jerrys house was a 4 bedroom, 2 bath, very nice. It was sitting on top of the ground level garage. I dont remember how many cars he could park inside but you can figure it out. The ground level appeared as ordinary two story house from the street with windows and a double front door, but when you opened the front door, it was all parking. Then behind the house was a shed roof with cars parked side by side, I think about 10 cars. Of course there were end walls and roll up doors for each car. In the yard behind the house was the workshop and behind that where the yard dropped off, invisible from the road was his junkyard. A row of 55 chevys, a row of 57 chevys and a row of wrecked junk Corvettes. looks like he moved to Monroe, different house http://www.jerrysusedcars.com/
Ditto. I'd love to find some kind of big old building. Or hell, even build something new that looks old that will allow for a big shop space and a Bruce Meyer's-esque living room like Jive-Bomber posted about a few weeks ago.
We have found noise is worse than smells. I plan any noisy work around the family and their sleep habits.
I have 3500 sq/ft workshop and a 900 sq/ft house right next to it. About as good as living in the shop as I would want.
i built a 2 roomed quarters for a tenant so he could get back on his feet. looks like a storeroom from out side. make sure you put in a air lock 2 door enterance say the size of a linen press buggar the city just do it he has been there for 2 to 3 yrs now, he likes it but he is been single for yrs now but it is a cheap way to live converted the 2nd dunny to a shower. he gets on with all other businesses no hassle do it only cost me 300 bucks and time most stuff was donnated.
There's plenty of older buildings that have retail shops ie liquor/ beverage/ corner stores, bars, real estate, barber, legal/CPA, laundry/seamstress, hardware, medical/dentist plenty of them around here still. Those are a little different than converting commercial industrial complex spaces with offices. But not much for the clever and crafty.
I built this shop in the early 80's. It has a room above the shop area that is approximately 900 sq. ft. We had planned to use it as an efficiency apartment, but it wound up housing a lot of woodworking equipment. Just got to watch that first step coming out the front door.
I have posted this before. Back bay is shop, kitchen on the right side. Main part of first floor is main shop. Upper level is two bedrooms and a large family room. Just under 3000 sq feet. First floor walls are straw bale construction.
This thread reminds me of this... <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/13JK5kChbRw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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