The Studio

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In the spring in 2017, I started building the little house and studio of my dreams in the mouth of Linville Gorge near Lake James.  By spring 2018 I was moving in and setting up a new studio.  It is quite a downsize from the full basement of my previous residence, but the location is well worth the sacrifice! The house and studio are connected by a deck.  The buildings had to be built over 2 feet above the last 100 year flood since my lot is in the flood plain of the Linville River, hence the stilts I decided to  install instead of a cinder block foundation.


                   

I used left over plybead from the ceiling of the house and wasted drywall was enough to do walls in the loft and kiln room. Waste not. Want not. I simply painted the sub floor with a high quality floor paint.  It looks so spacious here!

As I began to move things in, it certainly began to seem less spacious.  The ladder leads to the loft where I keep my packing material, photo booth, non pottery tools and recreational gear.
As I move through the production  cycle without the assistant I move my rolling tables and carts around to fit the space and task. It offers an opportunity to keep reasonably tidied up.  The wire rack now holds available pots for sale.  I have a seconds rack on the deck.
I have a wonderful view from my wheel looking into the natural woods in the back part of my lot.  I'm really enjoying the changing seasonal view.  There are both wild mountain laurel and rhododendron bushes that take their turns blooming in spring and summer and of course here in North Carolina we have brilliant color in the fall.
 My kiln room has room for one kiln which I realized was plenty if I'm doing everything and can't produce enough pots for more than one load at a time.  It has a sliding barn door and a thermostatically controlled exhaust fan that keeps the temperatures reasonable and the fumes out of the main space.      To the right and out of sight and to the left and out of sight below is the glazing corner.
 I have realized that keeping the glazes out of the heat of the kiln space has prevented a lot of evaporation that had become an unrealized problem and affords me a nice view of the front yard. My glazing mixing area is just big enough to get the ingredient bins out and have buckets for mixing.  
Pots to be packed up for shipping out to galleries next to the door where I use space to create a packing area.  I purchased a couple of french doors that are great to open up to the covered deck to give me plenty of room to get carts, boxes and materials in and out of the door and let in lots of light.
 I have found the deck rail great for drying pots in the sun.  You can see the deck roof from this view.  I hadn't planned on having a roof here, but with the record rain we've had in my first year, it has become invaluable!  I love my little space!