Tour the Studio

Hey! Want to come on a tour through my studio? (Well, a virtual tour because... 1 - my studio is not in a public space. 2 - You have to go through my garage which is actually one big booby-trap. 3 - I might not know you all that well and you would be coming into my home, but I am sure you are lovely person. Let's just say I have read a lot of thrillers, so I am not taking my chances.)

We are coming up on ten years in our home. That feels wild to me. So, ten years ago when we were house hunting, I was really hoping we could find a place that would allow for me to set up a home studio. I first saw our house online and was intrigued, but not convinced. When we made an appointment to see it in person, we got to see several parts of the house that offered real potential. These parts of the house were not even featured on the realtor page. For example, the garage was huge! The pictures just didn't capture it, but you can park four cars in there (if you go two cars deep)! There was also a staircase at the back of the garage, which was not pictured. The staircase led to an unfished loft. Since I could fully stand up in the loft, I started thinking studio right away.

Could we actually finish the space and turn it into my studio? Spoiler - we sure did! Andrew even fell through the floor and down into the garage in the process! I absolutely did not laugh until tears came out. It absolutely did not look like a scene out of Willy Wonka when the "bad eggs" fell through the floor. He was left with a fast-swelling, jammed finger (goodbye titanium wedding ring, hello silicone) and a rather impressive bruise on his arm that I fetched an ice pack for.

I digress. After a lot of hard work and some flailing about, we finished renovating the walk-up attic and turned it into my working studio space. My kilns were hard-wired to the breaker on the garage floor level, near the base of my steps. I have a back bench set up for all of my raw materials for glaze mixing. I built my studio shelves, as well as my canvas-wrapped work bench.

A potter's studio is often not very colorful (we are working with mud and then dried mud - so everything is the color of said mud). My glaze-fired pieces are constantly moving out of my studio and into homes, so I wanted to bring a little more permanent, playful color to my workspace. A painted flower mural was decided upon, next to where I throw. It's a pretty dreamy space for a home studio. It feels removed from my living space and yet, still a part of my house. I am so grateful for a home studio to create in - even if I never finished the trim around the windows and doors. I will work on that this weekend (said by me about nine years ago).

Have a wonderful weekend!