Villa - Warehouse Life: Guide To Unconventional Living Spaces: Discover how to live in artist lofts, warehouses and commercial spaces at a fraction of what you are paying for an apartment or house

1. Warehouse Life

Your Guide To Unconventional Living Spaces

Discover how to live in lofts, warehouses and commercial spaces at a fraction of what you are paying for an apartment or house.

Michael Villa

Disclaimer

I am not a lawyer or real estate broker or accountant and this is probably all bad advice. I take no responsibility for any action you choose to take based on anything in this book. My situation may be different from yours and laws or regulations in your area may be different or may change since this was written. I live in a warehouse! Why would you take advice from me anyway? All content in this book is for informational purposes only. I am not suggesting or advocating any activity whatsoever. I do not recommend, endorse, or suggest that anyone take any action that is not legal in your area.

ISBN13: 978-1-943257-00-3

2015 All Rights Reserved

Guangzhou Publishing

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher.

Those who are slaves to their own beliefs will never find freedom.

What would you do with more space?

Warehouse Life Blog

More resources and information are available at

www.WarehouseLife.com

Introduction What are Unconventional Living Spaces?

Discover how you can:

• Save money
• Live in an unusual and exciting space
• Have enough room to work on projects
• Avoid neighbors
• Enjoy solitude .

Does saving money and having more space sound appealing?

I remember when I was young and watched a TV show called Vega$ (1978-1981) starring Robert Urich where he lived in a commercial space with a garage door that opened and let him pull his car practically into the living room. What could be any cooler? I dreamed of having such a place to live. As I got older, social programming changed my perception and I, as most people, became programmed with the limiting idea that we should live in a house or an apartment and it must have a bedroom and a kitchen and a shower, otherwise it is not livable. My dream was set aside for what I thought were practical reasons. Fortunately, I eventually broke out of this programming and found a place I am happier with than any house or apartment I ever lived in before.

My only regret is that I did not do this years earlier.

Movies and TV programs show unconventional living spaces.

• Vega$ (1978-1981)
• Tron Legacy 2010 has the protagonist in a shipping container
• In Enemy of the State 1998 there is a warehouse
• The Conversation 1974 has characters living in a warehouse
• Wanted: Dead or Alive 1986
• Winters Tale 2014
• Karam
• The French romantic thriller Diva
• Unmade Beds
• Nash TV show
• Blind Beast 1969
• Cavemen 2013

What is an unconventional living space?

The term unconventional living space often brings up images of people living in missile silos in the Nevada desert or in apocalypse-proof underground bunkers. Though these are unconventional, they are not the only types of unconventional living spaces.

Other types of unconventional living spaces include warehouses, retail sales space, trailers, shipping containers, remote commercial service buildings that are no longer used, government buildings where the agency moved to another building, churches or unused schools. Many of these are hard to rent or sell due to the work required to make them usable for a business. That makes them perfect for live-work space.

I am not interested in roughing it myself. I like comfort and I will reveal how you can find a location that meets your needs and how to make it not only as comfortable as a house, but in some cases more comfortable, at a lower cost!

A residential area is an area zoned and primarily used for personal housing. A commercial or industrial area is an area zoned and primarily used for certain types of businesses. There are good reasons for zoning these separately. No one wants to live next to a loud manufacturing business, and businesses want to be in an area that is kept clean and is convenient for their clients to visit. Having a bunch of families with children leaving toys around or taking up parking spaces or being the lone business in an area that otherwise might draw customers from surrounding businesses is not what most businesses want. It is usually prohibited for someone to live in a commercial area, but there are ways around this which I will cover in more detail shortly.

Commercial rent can be much less than residential rent. This comes from a number of factors including lower taxes and less desirable locations compared to residential areas.

There is an entire subculture living in

unconventional spaces.

Lets talk space.

Houses are designed in a very inefficient manner. They have walls where they are not needed and no walls where they are needed. You cannot adjust rooms to meet your needs either. I had a house with a fairly large square footage of 1700sqft. One small bedroom was used for storage, but that meant boxes were stacked around the walls and the walking path in the center was completely wasted, plus I could only stack things so high due to the seven foot ceiling height. I also had a nice big bedroom, but what good does it do me when the living room is too small? I cant move that extra bedroom space to the living area when I need it or to the garage when I want to work on a project, so the large bedroom space was wasted all of the time except for the short part of the day when I was getting up or going to bed. I didnt need the space when I was sleeping.

In this house, I had a patio that I rarely used, and an odd-shaped kitchen that meant some of it was never used efficiently, so more wasted floor space. It was very inefficient and I never had enough room to work on my art and sculpting projects. The kitchen island was constantly covered with a project, and the cramped garage where I had a makeshift shop had a small table covered with other art projects I was working on. I was constantly shifting things around and never had enough storage or work space.

A large space is the benefit of a warehouse. You have some fixed rooms for basic living and a huge space you can arrange any way you want. If you are an artist or work on big projects then you know how valuable space can be.

Today the separation between work and home is not so clear. In the 1950s you left home at 7 AM and returned at 6 PM. Your work was left behind and you enjoyed home life.

Today, we are tweeting on our phone when we are riding in elevators, checking email for client questions during TV commercials, awake in bed at 2 am while the kids are sleeping, and answering emails from the boss on a laptop. Why is sleeping in your office prohibited, but officing where you sleep is not? If your neighbor can run a business from his home fixing computers or knitting sweaters, as long as he is not disturbing the neighbors, then why should you not be able to run a home from your business in a commercial location if you are not causing a disruption? I say you should!

Lets talk cost.

At one time I was renting an office and a house. I rented a commercial space for my computer programming business and lived in a 900 square foot house. When my business was expanding, I first rented the space thinking I might have no choice but to give up my house and live in the office if the business did not do well, but it did well enough that I could cover the bills. This meant that I was paying rent on a large office and on a small house. What a waste!