My clay studio is really taking shape now. A few weeks ago I had some family members come down to hang drywall and finish some electrical work. My dad and grandpa and I hung the drywall and my brother wired some outlets and some more lights. Thanks guys! Here are some photos of the inside after I got some of my clay stuff moved in.

The other side shows my clay table and wheel. I also hooked up a TV so I could catch the NFL draft and other sporting events while working with clay.

Here is a closeup of the little ‘L’ shaped table I made to put around my wheel. Now I have room for all my throwing tools, a couple balls of clay, water bucket and a 6-pack of Mt. Dew.

Last weekend was a great weekend. My race medals hit the market AND my dad and brother finally made it down to help me start building a clay studio. The plan, in a nutshell, is to put up some dividing walls in the basement and add more light and electricity. Here is what the “clay side” of the basement looked like before we started.

If you’ve been keeping score at home you probably noticed that I removed the “clay bubble” to give us room to work. Look at all the room! We made a trip to Lowes and got some wood and fluorescent lights and other necessary items and got to work. We worked most of the day, only taking a break to eat my wife’s awesome lasagna. They headed back home around 5:30. We got all the studs cut and I got to use a nifty nail gun to help put them in place. My brother got some of the electrical work done. Now the “paint side” lights can be operated with switches instead of pull chains and my wife actually has a decent amount of light in her new laundry room. Here are some pictures of construction in progress and where we stopped at the end of day 1.

As you can tell, these walls probably won’t keep much clay dust from flying around. But I will probably put up some plastic for now and the next time they come down we’ll go get some drywall and finish the lights and outlets. I’ve already been setting up the studio. I took apart the white shelves and put together my clay table. Maybe next weekend I’ll have my wheel set up…

A couple weeks ago I received my kiln which was shipped on a wooden pallet. Of course, since I’m so resourceful (and cheap) I decided not to throw away or burn such a great collection of wood, I decided to turn it into something useful. And the way I have my kiln room (garage) set up, I decided a shelf would be quite nice under the end of the workbench and next to the kiln. The more I thought about it, the more inconvenient it seemed until I remembered that there was a great invention a little while ago…. The wheel! So I turned the pallet, along with a couple pieces of extra wood and some wheels into the Kiln Cart. It is actually really sturdy and efficient. I haven’t actually fired the kiln since I have made the cart but it gets all the kiln stuff out of the way easily.

This has the potential to be a great weekend, not just because Monday is President’s day and I don’t have to go to school…. My dad is also planning to come down and put up some clay studio walls.