Workshop Considerations When Moving

[Leo Butler]

We bought a beaten up 1952 garrison colonial on two acres in MA with a near-derilict barn. I fixed up the barn to serve as my shop, with great views of our meadow, and it is heavenly. With serious insulation the heating/cooling costs are nominal. We did a deep energy retrofit on the house and built a substantial addition to give us a first floor master and everything else we need to age in place; we spent a (relative) ton on insulation and making the place as efficient as possible, as a result our operating costs are tiny and the house is incredibly comfortable. Couldn't be happier with our choice to get a smaller house on a bigger lot while most of our neighbors were moving into condos. Having an above-ground shop with big windows and great views is priceless. Having a place to "go to work" for the last year has been very beneficial to marital harmony as well :-).

Rehabbing an old property wasn't (by far) the inexpensive option, but we ended up with a place that is perfect for us and is making us very happy.

Roger, this sounds heavenly indeed. Congrats on the fixed-up barn, that possibility has been in the back of my mind as a stretch goal but for this next move I think we're likely to be closer to the city than would have many of such properties available. We'll see when we go out and look around.

We've been talking with the in-laws, and there's a reasonable chance they'll be moving by the time their kids hit high school age, depending upon where the brother-in-law's job takes him. Moving to be near someone usually carries that risk. So we're discussing how close we would want to be, and how realistic it is for this to be our last move. Currently, we're thinking that this won't be the last one. We could end up moving again to be near one or both of our daughters, depending upon where life takes them and whether there are grandkids that need some spoiling. There will likely be some amount of compromising going on with regard to my shop space in any case.

I saw a place on Zillow that was a solid 30 minutes away from them that had 3 acres and a barn that looked absolutely perfect. The one thing tho was there was a LOT of grass on the property that looked like it could keep one very busy mowing. What is it with all the houses with the great expanses of grass - what do people do with it all? I much prefer trees myself. Well, except in a suburban setting; I wrote a much larger check to my tree guy yesterday to do a big trimming job than I liked.

[Jim Becker]

Leo, trust me....trees come with a lot of hard labor that you can't be sitting down for like with mowing. I got more to deal with now with the winds we just had, too. This is one thing I'm really looking forward to with the new property...less lumberjacking.

[roger wiegand]

Kill the lawn!!

European turf grass lawns are a parched desert in terms of supporting the critters that form the base of the food pyramid for our wildlife. Meadow restoration with native plants is an incredibly rewarding exercise resulting in a low maintenance yard. I wouldn't have believed it, but the explosion in the number and diversity of insects and subsequently birds in our little meadow has been astonishing. People who have no particular knowledge or interest in such things come out to our place and first appreciate how pretty it is with the varied grasses and wildflowers, then after a bit will comment to the effect that "this place is ALIVE!". It's that obvious. Last summer we had easily twice as many successful nests in the yard as in the past-- including three clutches of bluebirds, 17 fledglings!

Very strongly recommend reading Doug Tallamy's books, he provides (an a serious entomologist) the rationale for why you should embrace native plants, with the research data to back it up, but then also a very reasonable and practical approach to accomplishing it in urban and suburban settings. Establishing a native meadow is work, certainly, but once established, aside from battling the invasives, requires much less effort.

[Leo Butler]

Leo, trust me....trees come with a lot of hard labor that you can't be sitting down for like with mowing. I got more to deal with now with the winds we just had, too. This is one thing I'm really looking forward to with the new property...less lumberjacking.

Okay, this is one of those things that I've probably been thinking about all wrong. I pretty much assumed, "Hey, forests have done just fine without humans being around to keep 'em trimmed; I'll just need to worry about the ones near the house and everything else will take are of itself." Trees or branches falling across a road, too, of course. Does the rabbit hole go much deeper than that?

[Doug Dawson]

Establishing a native meadow is work, certainly, but once established, aside from battling the invasives, requires much less effort.

Note that you must consider old tires and mattresses as among the invasives. ;^)

[Leo Butler]

Kill the lawn!!

European turf grass lawns are a parched desert in terms of supporting the critters that form the base of the food pyramid for our wildlife. Meadow restoration with native plants is an incredibly rewarding exercise resulting in a low maintenance yard.

Wow. I'm so glad you brought this up; it would not have even crossed my mind. My wife would be totally on board with making this happen. We've been backpacking in the Sierras for decades and there's not much she likes more than a beautiful meadow.

[Mike Soaper]

Trees can also take out overhead power lines.

[Jim Becker]

Okay, this is one of those things that I've probably been thinking about all wrong. I pretty much assumed, "Hey, forests have done just fine without humans being around to keep 'em trimmed; I'll just need to worry about the ones near the house and everything else will take are of itself." Trees or branches falling across a road, too, of course. Does the rabbit hole go much deeper than that?

It's true that you can kinda leave a "forest" do it's thing with the cycle of nature. The work comes with the trees that are closer to structures and roads/driveways/powerlines, etc. Mother nature often gets a gleam in her eye for those areas! I will admit that some of the challenges here have been because of dead-outs caused by the emerald ash borer. We lost...Every. Single. Ash. Tree. On. Our. Property.

I do think that Roger makes a good point that replacing some meaningful percentage of lawn with more natural settings is a great idea. I often fiddled with that idea for areas of our current property, honestly. But that will be the next owner's decision.

[Dave Seng]

Kill the lawn!!

European turf grass lawns are a parched desert in terms of supporting the critters that form the base of the food pyramid for our wildlife. Meadow restoration with native plants is an incredibly rewarding exercise resulting in a low maintenance yard. I wouldn't have believed it, but the explosion in the number and diversity of insects and subsequently birds in our little meadow has been astonishing. People who have no particular knowledge or interest in such things come out to our place and first appreciate how pretty it is with the varied grasses and wildflowers, then after a bit will comment to the effect that "this place is ALIVE!". It's that obvious. Last summer we had easily twice as many successful nests in the yard as in the past-- including three clutches of bluebirds, 17 fledglings!

While this can be a very nice idea, one has to be careful about doing it in areas that are prone to wildfire. A nice green lawn can provide a buffer zone around a house to help mitigate the spread of wild fire to the structure. Whereas native grasses close to the structure will often burn quickly and fiercely and can contribute to the ignition of buildings in the wildland/urban interface. I keep a buffer of lawn around 50-80 feet wide around the house and let the outlying areas run with native grasses. Keeping shrubs and plantings away from the structure helps too. It's no guarantee, but simply one layer of defense. Keeping branches on conifers trimmed 8'-10' above the ground can also help keep a grass fire from spreading as easily into the trees.

[roger wiegand]

While this can be a very nice idea, one has to be careful about doing it in areas that are prone to wildfire. A nice green lawn can provide a buffer zone around a house to help mitigate the spread of wild fire to the structure. Whereas native grasses close to the structure will often burn quickly and fiercely and can contribute to the ignition of buildings in the wildland/urban interface. I keep a buffer of lawn around 50-80 feet wide around the house and let the outlying areas run with native grasses. Keeping shrubs and plantings away from the structure helps too. It's no guarantee, but simply one layer of defense. Keeping branches on conifers trimmed 8'-10' above the ground can also help keep a grass fire from spreading as easily into the trees.

Fire mitigation is serious business, and I know little about the native alternatives in the west. I'm pretty sure that there are successful strategies that don't involve a water and nutrient input intensive species like European turf grass as the only alternative. Clearly one has to do what's appropriate in ones climate. A tallgrass prairie growing right up to the eves of your house probably isn't it!

[Roger Feeley]

We bought a beaten up 1952 garrison colonial on two acres in MA with a near-derilict barn. I fixed up the barn to serve as my shop, with great views of our meadow, and it is heavenly. With serious insulation the heating/cooling costs are nominal. We did a deep energy retrofit on the house and built a substantial addition to give us a first floor master and everything else we need to age in place; we spent a (relative) ton on insulation and making the place as efficient as possible, as a result our operating costs are tiny and the house is incredibly comfortable. Couldn't be happier with our choice to get a smaller house on a bigger lot while most of our neighbors were moving into condos. Having an above-ground shop with big windows and great views is priceless. Having a place to "go to work" for the last year has been very beneficial to marital harmony as well :-).

Ha! This reminded me of a guy back in the KC area who had this old barn that looked like it was about to fall over. Very carefully, without permits, over a period of years, he constructed sort of an ultimate man cave inside that barn. He had a bar, media room and several guest rooms. Outside, the barn still looked like it always had. But the inner building was a palace. All this was to avoid property taxes. The assessor would see the barn and move on.

[roger wiegand]

Ha! This reminded me of a guy back in the KC area who had this old barn that looked like it was about to fall over. Very carefully, without permits, over a period of years, he constructed sort of an ultimate man cave inside that barn. He had a bar, media room and several guest rooms. Outside, the barn still looked like it always had. But the inner building was a palace. All this was to avoid property taxes. The assessor would see the barn and move on.

No such shenanigans here. Everything done with permits and inspections. Because our taxes are based on a real "market value" appraisals of the property, improvements like this don't significantly affect our taxes because, for better or worse, no matter how expensive they are to build, they have virtually no market value to subsequent "typical" buyers. It's very rare for a house in our town to sell for a value >10% off the town's appraisal; they seem to do a very good job of getting the numbers pretty close.

[Tom Bender]

Let me suggest a ranch with walk out basement. Contract conversion of much of the basement to shop and you're done. It can be converted back for or by a future owner. This lets you look at many modern suburban houses at reasonable sizes and prices. Yes there are compromises with a basement shop but also with a separate or garage shop.

[Jim Becker]

Tom, I generally agree that would be nice, but we originally started out looking for a rancher because a single floor would be ideal for us going forward. Then we added split levels as a compromise. Then we stopped even trying to find these one floor unicorns altogether...today's market is brutal. Walk outs also don't happen in flat neighborhoods, so that makes them harder to find in many areas...I honestly wouldn't favor a shop under my home for noise, headroom and some other reasons, but that's a personal preference.

[Roger Feeley]

It has worked out very well. Our hunt leading up to the decision to 'squat' on our daughters property was not heavenly. Anyone who knows DC area house prices will sympathize. We were moving from a house in Overland Park, KS that was about 2400 sq feet, 4 bedrooms, center hall on a quarter acre lot. For the area, it was pretty ordinary. We were pleased at the time to get about 280K out of it. That house on that much land here in Falls Church would be around a million. We had to be coached past the sticker shock. We saw a bunch of kind of crappy houses that were 'only' 600K. A huge problem for us was that we wanted an unfinished basement. But property is so expensive here that people finish every square inch. So we asked the agent to find houses with badly finished basements figuring that they wouldn't add much to the price.

For us, starting from scratch was the the thing to do. Our lopsided requirements just couldn't be found inside the beltway. I would imagine that if we had been willing to be farther out we could have found something. But we would be talking about being 45 minutes away from family. It really didn't make sense to move 1100 miles and miss the target.