Well, several questions came to my mind while trying to build up villages. One was, is there a way to expand the realm of where I can build, to push the barrier out further? I tried placing a work station as we can only build in the presence of one, but that didn't work. I'm not sure if there's a way to do -that-, I'm still looking.
Another problem I ran into was when I was making a little base at that Red Rocket gas station/garage, and I ran out of space to build things. I did find a trick however, where if you recycle things.. even if it's an item already there, it'll let you place an item then, I was able to place more sleeping bags and vegetables to actually get room for a few people to live there, by recycling things like tires scattered about. (Heh, I even was able to make a ramp to get to the roof, and I put a cabin on top, and the building is covered in lights and looks great at night.)
If there are any other tricks in building to get around these problems, I'd love to hear them.