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Aug. 14th, 2019 11:27 amBack when I joined Club Mud, in 1998, I had what was called a full-space membership: key holder access to the facility, and a private shelf unit for storage that was four feet wide, two feet deep, floor to ceiling.
I very quickly discovered it wasn't enough. I was producing a lot of pots, needed room to store glazes and tools and bisque. Admittedly, I wasn't making (and selling) nearly as much as I do today, but it was still a tight squeeze. So I was happy to pay a little extra for a semi-private space, an alcove between the main shop and the kitchen area, when one opened up a few years later. There were two huge shelf units, one three shelves wide, one four, and enough room to squeeze in a tiny wedging table and my Pacifica potter's wheel. It got a little stuffy on firing days--for some reason, stale air collected in there--but opening a door and turning on a fan helped immensely.
Then we bought a house. I tore up the rug in the former family room, covered the walls with washable panels, built a big shelf unit. Bought a used electric kiln from a potter in Portland, and when my former boss sold his pottery business, I went up to Cheshire to buy a bunch of ware boards and throwing bats, and wound up also bringing home his Soldner electric potter's wheel.
So the back half of my space at Club Mud fell into disuse. The shelves were full of stuff from when I moved in, but rarely any current work, as it was so hard to get things in and out of the constricted space. Eventually, I loaned the Pacifica to a new member of the club to use in her shared space and just stacked boxes of bisque on the floor.
This last winter, I took a hard look at the space. On firing days, when I didn't have anything else to do, I went through all the old boxes, threw out a bunch of stuff. Decided that, if I dismantled the back shelf unit and replaced with a standard full-space rack, there'd be room for another potter in there. Since Nicole was currently throwing with my wheel on her front porch, I decided to try and get it ready for occupancy before the rainy season.
The first stage was cleaning up. There was a lot of clay on the walls, splashed from when I was still throwing pots there. After a good scrub, I painted everything with a gallon of recycled paint I picked up at BRING. I took out the pipe shelf supports and stowed them in the attic, took down the two-by-four uprights and took them home. Scrubbed 20 years worth of dust off the floor.
With the help of about six bucks worth of one-by-two and a box of self-tapping screws, I converted the uprights into sides of a slide-in shelf unit, then took them down to install in the corner. I replaced the ceiling light fixture with an outlet and hung and plugged in an LED shop light. I still need to run a contractor-grade power strip (15 foot cord) along the back so Nicole can plug in the wheel, but we should be ready for occupancy after my next firing.
I very quickly discovered it wasn't enough. I was producing a lot of pots, needed room to store glazes and tools and bisque. Admittedly, I wasn't making (and selling) nearly as much as I do today, but it was still a tight squeeze. So I was happy to pay a little extra for a semi-private space, an alcove between the main shop and the kitchen area, when one opened up a few years later. There were two huge shelf units, one three shelves wide, one four, and enough room to squeeze in a tiny wedging table and my Pacifica potter's wheel. It got a little stuffy on firing days--for some reason, stale air collected in there--but opening a door and turning on a fan helped immensely.
Then we bought a house. I tore up the rug in the former family room, covered the walls with washable panels, built a big shelf unit. Bought a used electric kiln from a potter in Portland, and when my former boss sold his pottery business, I went up to Cheshire to buy a bunch of ware boards and throwing bats, and wound up also bringing home his Soldner electric potter's wheel.
So the back half of my space at Club Mud fell into disuse. The shelves were full of stuff from when I moved in, but rarely any current work, as it was so hard to get things in and out of the constricted space. Eventually, I loaned the Pacifica to a new member of the club to use in her shared space and just stacked boxes of bisque on the floor.
This last winter, I took a hard look at the space. On firing days, when I didn't have anything else to do, I went through all the old boxes, threw out a bunch of stuff. Decided that, if I dismantled the back shelf unit and replaced with a standard full-space rack, there'd be room for another potter in there. Since Nicole was currently throwing with my wheel on her front porch, I decided to try and get it ready for occupancy before the rainy season.
The first stage was cleaning up. There was a lot of clay on the walls, splashed from when I was still throwing pots there. After a good scrub, I painted everything with a gallon of recycled paint I picked up at BRING. I took out the pipe shelf supports and stowed them in the attic, took down the two-by-four uprights and took them home. Scrubbed 20 years worth of dust off the floor.
With the help of about six bucks worth of one-by-two and a box of self-tapping screws, I converted the uprights into sides of a slide-in shelf unit, then took them down to install in the corner. I replaced the ceiling light fixture with an outlet and hung and plugged in an LED shop light. I still need to run a contractor-grade power strip (15 foot cord) along the back so Nicole can plug in the wheel, but we should be ready for occupancy after my next firing.