You know, if I were independently wealthy, like if I had won the lottery, I'd pretty much just stay at home and make shit. I'd have a huge-ass workshop with woodworking and machining sections as well as a nifty electronics design lab. And I'd build a forge for recovering aluminum scrap. I'd also have an open account at McMaster-Carr.

Don't get me wrong, I like where I live. I like the convenience, I like the neighborhood. But my tiny parcel of land doesn't lend itself well to industrial pursuits or off-the-grid experimentation.

However, getting to a place that does that's still within decent range of work and isn't outlandisly expensive is somewhat of an exercise in futility.

I'm still back to doing a garage workspace/studio. Careful reading of Minneapolis city building code 537.60 states that the maximum floor area allowed is 676 square feet, which in a mazimized configuration is 26 x 26 feet. The floor area distinction is critical: to me that means the inside wall-to-wall floor, and not the exterior wall-to-wall footprint of the building. If the foundation walls are 8" thick (AKA the thickness of a concrete block), that's a 16-inch difference, or a little over 75 square feet of usable space.

Lotsa paperwork tonight.