Jim and I are working toward a deadline. At least I am–he’s not a deadline type of guy. We have one more week before leaving on a nine-day vacation, and I would love to have 80% of our garage chaos transformed into perfect order. I want to come home on July 31st to a garage that can accommodate 2 cars and all of our pottery-making equipment, neat and clean and ready to create something in clay. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?
In the last week we have seen some major progress:
- Sheila Seppi up in Leadville is raising money so that Spirit Way can buy a yurt for the land where she conducts ceremonies. She wants stuff to sell at a garage sale. I loaded up a car-full.
- Jim moved a big shelving unit out of the garage and found a home for it in our back-yard shed. That’s where he mixes glazes. There are bags of ingredients all over the shed floor that he can now place on the shelves.
- He moved two small tables out of the shed in hopes of finding someone who wants them. The right person came along and took them for her upcoming garage sale in Buena Vista.
- Moving the shelving unit to the shed freed up space for glaze buckets that had been sitting in the middle of the garage. Jim painted that corner of the garage white and stacked the buckets in that empty spot. Hallelujah!
- Today, Jim took down the big 8 x 4 plywood sheet that serves as our main pottery sorting table, and cut it in half. Two 4 x 4s will be easier to handle and store.
- He moved the truck back into the garage for the first time since this project began. Now both cars actually fit in the garage. A big day.
Here’s a picture of the garage, finally clear enough for two cars. The pottery storage racks are on the left. Some glaze buckets still remain in front of them (they’ve got to be stacked elsewhere). The 4×4 sheets of plywood (our work tables) are resting in front of Jim’s table saw. The pug mill for mixing clay sits between the two windows. The equipment with a big wheel is the slab roller.
The picture below shows the slab roller in the middle of the back wall. Jim’s potter’s wheel is to the left of it on a black stand. When he makes vessels on the potter’s wheel, he will put the ware onto the black shelving unit, which is currently full of stuff that shouldn’t be there. The clutter will have to find a new home.
As you can see, we have made great strides, but more strides need to be made! Together, we will need to examine everything to see what needs to go and what we can keep. We’ll also need to find the perfect niche for each thing. This is a tight space to be working in, but it’s where we will be this fall and winter. When we are working in there, we will move both cars out of the garage, put up the 4 x 4 tables, and have a great work space. When it’s time to bring the cars in, we will crunch everything back into its designated cubbyhole. At least that is my vision!
