Home Sweet Home

While at the tradeshow I talked to one woman who has grown her little company into a company that now has a very strong brand name of it's own but they are also the ones doing private label for a lot of the BIG guys as well. A very smart and very nice woman - about my age - so I was asking her about when her company was smaller. Turns out that she converted part of her garage into a workspace rather than renting space like I do. That, no surprise, got me thinking.

We have a shed in the backyard...it's a biggish shed that right now is taken up 75% with my packing materials and then 25% a mix of yard/lawn care equipment and other miscellanious (like the fake xmas tree I bought a few years ago because it pains me to cut down a living one). I was wondering if I cleaned out the shed of my packaging material could I turn it into a legititmate workspace? I'd have to buy some equipment so the first year it would probably be more expensive to turn it into the workspace then to rent, but over multiple years it would save me upwards of $6500 or more/year and wouldn't limit the hours I could be in there which would provide me with more opportunity for growth in the shortterm.

Of course, other then the cost - which I need to research, including calling in a friend who is a structural engineer to get his thoughts on a few ideas I have, there are a few downsides. The main one being is that then I'm more or less housebound. Right now two times a week I head into my workspace and since it's shared with other people I get to interact with the human race. If I work 100% from home will I find myself turning into a shutin and becoming that woman who adopts 100 cats (ok, I'd rather adopt 100 dogs and would do it if we had the space...perhaps I am that woman already?). Or are there ways to work around becoming a shutin? One idea I had, even before this thought about working 100% from home, was to volunteer at the zoo next summer at their petting zoo program as it seems like a great way for me to get my 'farm' fix for a few hours a week. If I'm working from home then it would also be a great way to get out into the real world and help provide my week with what would likely be some much-needed structure. If I take advantage of opportunities like that and others would the working from home thing be ok from a mental perspective?

Nothing's going to happen before the end of the year, now is just a time to mull over the ideas.