I'm looking at building a 150 square foot workshop / storage building
in the backyard. It won't need power or plumbing for what I'm doing
and as long as it's at least 5-ft from the house or property line, no
permit is required. Otherwise, it would add $700 to my annual
property tax bill, which is would be more than the shed would be worth
to me.

Next step would be to connect it to an existing door to the house with
something that the city would not labeled a "structure" but would let
me go in and out without opening either one to bugs, etc.

Any ideas about how to make some kind of connection like this and
still be legal?

We have a neighbor down the hill who has a large shed next to his house.
The shed has a small gable roof over the shed door. The house has a larger
gable roof over the house door that extends over the top of the sheds small
gable. Officially, the two buildings are not connected at all, but he can
walk from one building to the other in the rain without getting wet.

If you wanted to, you could easily add some removable screen panels to this
kind of setup to keep out bugs. You could even use retractable screens so
it's all open until you need them.

Years ago one of my building inspectors told me I could build a roof
between our house and standalone garage. As long as it didn't have walls, I
wouldn't need to worry about self closing doors, fire ratings, etc. I never
pursued it, so I don't know if the rules would be the same now, but I
always found that an interesting loophole.

A call to your county or city building department would probably be the
best way to find out the best way to handle the situation.

Anthony Watson
www.mountainsoftware.com
www.watsondiy.com