Being a chemist without someone else's lab

People used to do this all the time. The chemist who had their home laboratories, and made discoveries in their spare time. Is that still possible today? I have to admit, I can't try much, because my husband and I rent, and I don't want to make permanent changes to the house, and am pretty risk adverse when dealing with someone else's property. But I try to collect resources, to make myself feel connected to chemistry, and that I am still doing productive things. I am still in the process of working on cosmetics, which, at least at the level I'm doing, are pretty low risk. I'm also looking at things/ways online to get chemicals/resources. I found a decent thread on about.com here . I wrote earlier about free full pdf resources. I can sometimes get friends still associated with schools to look up papers for me, particularly if I have a quick reference. Have I missed anything? What are other suggestions?