I am under the cottage industries business in ohio but not licensed...I have a sun room with windows on all sides and I am going to be doing a couple cake dummies here in a month or two and I was wondering if it would be breaking any kind of law to put them by my windows with a sign? I thought that would be great advertisement for people driving by. who knows?

April :0)

Check with your city. If you live in an area that is zoned residential only, you probably can't. The rental house we are currently in is zoned for residential and commercial, so I guess I could, but not sure I would want to. You might end up with people knocking on your door thinking you are a bakery.

good thinking...thanks for the info...i'll check about the zoning thing and if I decide to put a cake in the window...i might try to make a sign that says by appointment only or something. who knows...we'll see

april :0)

I totally wouldn't, even if you *could*, for the same reasons...You'll have no privacy, because people will knock on your door and/or call you at all hours thinking you're a bakery...nights...Sunday afternoons in your PJ's...

I know whereof I speak: I run DH's business from my private office at home, though our log yard is 35 minutes away, and even without advertising our private address and even with a separate business physical/mailing address, I've had customers look up our phone # online and FIND OUR HOUSE, and show up on my doorstep while I'm in my bathrobe to ask me why I'm not answering my phone!
What the --!?! Get OFF MY PORCH!

Put an ad out locally if you want to advertise, but unless you want to feel like you're trying to live in a public bakery, I wouldn't do the window thing.

I would check with zoning too.

Side note: be careful with the cakes that have color. The sunlight can fade the color and make it look really bad. I learned this the hard way.

I am also in Ohio and in a neighborhood zoned residential only. I cannot display any cakes and/or signs of any kind....and even if I could, am not sure I would want to either!

I think it sounds tacky to do so, plus the whole legality issue!

thanks all...i think I will still make dummies but just put them in my room that I am going to re-do to become my cake room for when I have tasting appointments and such and so then the customers can come into the room and see the dummies if need be!

A lady on my street who is a seamstress had a sign in her window for a while and she was made to take it down due to zoning restrictions.