I can't bake from home without building an addition to the house and having a separate kitchen or renting out a kitchen for ~$15/hour (never going to happen). I looked online at some of the foreclosed homes in town, and there are some that are selling for like $6-7k. Even if I took out a loan for double that for renovations, it'd be less than $100/month, plus utilities, plus property taxes (though they are very small homes in not great areas of town, so they'd be pretty low as well)

I wouldn't be there all the time, so the utlities would be pretty low, plus I'd have a huge amount of space.

Since nobody would live there, would it count as a seperate kitchen, or would I have to get zoned as a business, even if I didn't have a store front (at least right away)?

Thanks for your help, guys, I'm just trying to get all of this sorted out in my head. My skills aren't ready to open up shop yet, but I really want to have all my ducks in a row and a SOLID business plan before I get started.

zoning is different from health dept, so it would depend on where you bought the house. If it's strictly a residential area, zoned strictly for residential, it's doubtful if you can open a business there.

I know of a couple of bakers who started that way .... bought a small house and converted it to a commercial kitchen, office and shop space.

But check with the zoning before you buy anything.

on zoning...also check if possible to get a variance.

certain types of business can be run out of a "home" in a residential area.

but...that varies city by city, county by county (have to know which apply, city or county)

Most of the houses I've been looking at are downtown, where there are houses and businesses all around, but I don't know if it varies block by block or what. I guess that's something I'll have to look into. I know the city is really trying to rebuild the downtown area, since its really taken a hit these last few years, so hopefully they'd like to see any influx of new business

Debi, I'm glad you've heard of people doing something similar. It makes me feel like I'm not so crazy for wanting to do it afterall

I have recently been throught the whole zoning issue. They said no at first because of residential, then I went down there after hearing about the variance thing from Doug also. They still the variance would not help, because the zoning board would deny it.
But they did manage to find something in the books called "Home Occupation" (i believe). Which allowed me to have my garage converted. So there may be many options for you to try. We are planning to start building later this month!!!

Good Luck and I hope it works out for you, that sounds like it would be great with all that space.

Veronica

in 05 i bought a distressed property with 2 buildings on it, it was only 15k. so i just paid cash for it....it was already zoned com....

the back building was once a BBQ place...about 700 sq ft....the last couple of years i've been living in it...making it into a home for me.

i had planned to rehab the front builkding that was once a junk store into my bakery.....

welllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll...i got notice this january it had been condemned....so i'm gonna pay the city 2K to tear it down, and i'm gonna start from scratch and build a lil cute building on the lot and use the reat for parking...the exsisting building was prollt too big anyhow 2200 sq ft......

i love the idea of doin it cheap...and then you won't have to use all your $$$$$$$$$ for overhead...i been doing everything with cash, so it's takin awhile, but i love projects anyway.....so now i have a cute lil home (paid for)...and soon will have a new cute lil bakery.....i'm trying to learn to enjoy the process...it is really fun to see how cheap you can get things done for....i been buying stuff for my lil house like mad off craigslist....last month i got a new prehung door for 30 bucks...and someone just gave me a perfectly good dishwasher...just come and pick it up.

i think" thinking outside the box" is the spirit of a real enterpener ...

i put a few of my wedding cakes on special...in a couple months that paid for my new metal roof on my house...it's fun!

i think i'd buy a place that is already zoned comm. instead of going thru the pain in the butt of rezoning....i'm kinda excited to see someone else has the same idea as i had...it will work, plus if they are trying to get the downtown going again...they will love the idea of a new bakery going in.

oh yeah, at my shop, i'm only open 3 days a week....the electric bills have gone down, since i've cut the days back.....

ps....are you handy with power tools?...every girl could use an aircompressor and some nice brad nailers....i'm looking at a frame nailer now...who knows, maybe i'll frame my lil bakery myself! LOL...i've already done a bunch of stuff i didn't know i could do!

op, i just have to say this.. everytime i see your little default pic it reminds me, lol, but i came soooo close to getting that as a tat. i opted for a simple treble cleff, but i love that symble

so anyway back on topic. i am in texas and we have the same laws i think. it has to be a seperate building approved by the hd. my dad had a bbq stand onece it was like a little tiny portable building and he got it approved easily so i am going to do the same. i'm going to get a small portabel building or just build a shed and do whatever it is you ahve to do with the electric and water etc etc. my dad said it was really simple. that way it is on my property. much easier than driving away if i wanna stay up late and work on something.