Ilive in a three-generation household. My wife and I, our son and daughter, and my in-laws share a single house in the Long Island suburbs. Our place is big, but crowded: all of us have hobbies, and so every shelf or surface contains toys, books, art supplies, sporting goods, craft projects, cameras, musical instruments, or kitchen gadgets. Before the table can be set for dinner, it must be cleared of a board game or marble run. My desk, where I aim to write in the mornings, has been repurposed as a drone-repair workshop.

The property includes two broken-down sheds and a garage. It would make sense for us to convert them into more useful structures—say, home offices or play spaces. But rules constrain us. My mother-in-law has briefed me on the situation many times, but the specifics still

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