Before Jim hurt his shoulder, we had talked about replacing the pottery studio floor. The vinyl tiles that we pasted down 15 years ago are cracking. That home improvement idea went on hold with Jim’s accident . . . until this weekend.
After glazing a table full of pots and stacking the kiln last Thursday, I could taste the glaze dust in my mouth, smell it in the garage, and feel it prickling my throat. I told Jim that I might have to quit doing pottery altogether. But for now, I needed to find a really good mask and use that when I’m working around clay and glaze dust. That’s when we decided to move the pottery operation into the garage. He is ready to downsize, and he thinks he can fit the potter’s wheel, slab roller, extruder, and pug mill in there if we remove the big shelving unit and the junk we don’t need. Hmmmmm.
We’ve co-habitated with clay for our entire married life. In Denver, the studio was off the utility room, which was off the kitchen, which was off the living room. In our present home, the studio is off the living room. Clay dust has been a fact of life in our house. We don’t see it in the air, but it makes its presence known in the vacuum cleaner. I’m the one who is most bothered by the dust. Jim may be too, but he doesn’t sense it as a hazard as I do.
So, the plan is:
- Clear everything out of the pottery studio
- Decide what kind of floor covering we want
- Clean the pottery studio top to bottom
- Finish glazing and firing all pottery on tap and move it into the galleries that carry our work
- Take down the old shelving unit in the garage that held a thousand things
- Clear all “stuff” out of the garage that we no longer need
- Have a garage sale
- Move the pottery equipment into the pristine, clean garage
- Resume making pottery on a limited scale
- Convert the pottery studio to its new incarnation – still to be decided
Here are some pictures of the chaos around our place. This is the northwest corner. We’ve already moved three shelving units out, exposing the west wall. That’s our pug mill and table piled high with stuff that has to go to the garage . . or the dump.
Pointing my camera toward the east wall, this is a view of total chaos on Saturday morning. Everything is coming down and moving out. Most goes onto the garage floor for now.
And this is Sunday. The room is virtually cleaned out. The utility sink will stay for now.
The miracle is that Jim was able to move all these things, with my help of course. His right shoulder didn’t hurt after two days of moving heavy equipment and shelving. His arm is getting stronger. I’m putting Young Living Essential Oils on his shoulder separation “bump” at night and maybe it’s working.
Next we will attack the garage. It is a picture of chaos that you cannot imagine. I’ll save its transformation for another blog. I’m sure it won’t happen overnight.
