"Another new code is that if you want to finish a basement into living space there has to be some other form of egress other than a bulkhead thus necessatating some expensive landscaping to make a well in order to put a regular door in if you can't configure a true walk out basement." Can you provide more information on this one? Our town's current rule is that you only need egress windows in a finished basement if it has bedrooms. Our house is at grade all the way around (dirt 8" from bottom of shingles), so regular windows are not an option. Unless we completely tore up the back yard, put in about 15k worth of walls and fencing (to stop anyone from falling off the top of the walls) and rerouted an extensive underground drainage system.

Sort of. We decided to put radiant heat in the basement (pex in the slab), paint the floor, drywall the ceiling. In that jurisdiction you could add on to the original permit, which didn't cost much. My husband used the space as a music studio, and liked the acoutics of the concrete walls better than drywall, so we left it like that. His equipment is rather industrial looking, so it worked. But it was far more space than we ever needed. I'm completely over "big dream house" syndrome. These days I only want space we will actually use. IIWY I would avoid "mission creep," pocket the cash, and wait and see. However, your planning department needs to get the story straight. Go to the lead planning officer, spell out exactly what you want, and ask for a definitive ruling. Sometimes the people doing front desk duty aren't that experienced, or they don't communicate well.

nidnay - at our current facility we have an 8 stall barn with a bathroom, 12' X 18' office, and 12' X 24' tackroom, with the barn being about 125' away from the back of our house (facing it actually). I've lived here for 18 years now and we RARELY EVER use the stalls, so we don't plan on building a 'stable' (or a barn with stalls). The horses are going to live out with shelters in each pasture. Our current barn had to have it's own it's own septic system. $$$ The current land we are looking at only had one perc site for 4 bedrooms. I don't want to pay for the test for a second perc ($250) plus the cost of having another septic system (about $4K), as well as creating a climate controlled office and bathroom in the barn (a mini split system is about $3K and a 2 piece bathroom probably around $2K). That is about $10K right there in a separate septic, a 2 piece bathroom, and office and climate control for both (as well as permitting, creating plans, etc.). All things that would have already been in the house at the square footage we had to build. Plus grading for a large barn was going to be expensive. We found a place next to the house to put in a modest shed row 'barn' for a tack room, feed room and grooming, that will work with the topography of the land for minimal grading work. We did this to keep things cost effective. It's just my husband and I living in this house, it's not like we have kids to keep separated from my business. We're both fine with this situation. The door up the stairs to the main floor will have a lock on it. And I don't have a lesson mill program, I focus on quality not quantity. I've been teaching for over 20 years now. I keep about 8 weekly students at any given time. I get to know my students and my parents well... my students tend to stick around for years. Same for my boarders. We'll have 2 or 3 boarders at the new location. At our current facility 3 of our customers have been with us for 5+ years. At one point or another I end up paying most of my students and all of my boarders to house sit / dog sit / farm sit for us when we go on vacation. I'm pretty confident they are not going to bust the door down to access the main floor of my home. And they won't be there at inappropriate hours of the day / night anyhow. Vigil Carter - I guess you didn't read my last post. We priced out a 1 story 'ranch' with the same builder. 2200 sq ft was going to cost $209,000 THEN another $15K because of the sloped ground to add more courses to the crawl space foundation. This 1700 sq ft two story house, without walkout basement, came in at $178K pre-basement. The cost of the completely finished 840 sq ft basement, with a grand total heated sq ft of 2540, came to a total less than the single story 2200 sq ft ranch. Though we could have gotten a separate entrance in-law space, the in-law space would have been way smaller (by over 150 sq ft) and I would not have had an office that was separate from my main living space. I lift 50 pound bags of feed and hay nearly daily and my husband is military / infantry, we are active horse riders and hikers. I think we can handle interior stairs for another 12+ years. :) At that point if it starts to bother us then we can add a master suit to the side of the house (which we had already spec'd out anyhow but we just do not need at this time).

My thought behind complying with the code was to just make sure we did things the right way. If something pushes us too far towards doing something illegal, we can clearly skip that. Let me begin by saying, that I don't really care about permitted and inspected work. I am having an opening widened, and inspections are going to move the installation of an engineer designed beam from a one day project, to a month long project with three days of paying workers. I have little respect for permitting process. So I could absolutely not care any less if you your project is permitted. However, in your case your intent is clearly not allowed by code so for all practical purposes you can't achieve a space that is to code in all ways but one. Your building department can reject your proposal at any time based on the intent to ignore the habitable space requirement. I am not telling you not to do it. I am just trying to alter the way you are thinking about doing it. what really is habitable space? Any spaces in a residence used for living, sleeping, eating, or cooking. If your intent is to use the space as living space, you can't end-run around the code by calling it an improved space. As it stands right now, I have an 800 sq. ft. attic. I can put a bed up there and sleep there if I want (no matter how uncomfortable). Are you saying that doing so would be illegal and I can be arrested? Yes, that is exactly what I am saying. However, there is some problem with the binary classification of legal vs. illegal. Most days I drive a road with a 55 mph speed limit that I actually feel is unsafe to drive at less than 65 mph, (cars will pass you in unsafe ways). So I break the law most days when I speed up to 65 mph, however, I am doubtful that I will be going to jail for it. I find that hard to believe. I can put dumbbells up then and exercise, is that criminal? That just doesn’t make sense to me??? Having a standard height requirement for living space doesn't make a lot of sense to me, it seems like there should be an exception for shorter individuals. Having rather arbitrary speed limits doesn't make sense to me, it seems like there should be a modification for current driving conditions. Jay-walking being illegal seems completely ridiculous to me. Come to think of it, the government telling you what indigenous plants you can grow in your garden seems ridiculous to me. But here we are...