Go away rain!

 We've had a couple of days of nonstop pouring rain. Our home is at the bottom of a hilly neighborhood and in addition to the rain pouring from above we have the rain coming down the hills. There's a veritable creek that runs at the end of our backyard whenever it rains this hard. It comes under the neighbor's fence and runs right through our property. We've named it Lynt Creek. You can see from the pictures that the water really is running.



Of course all this rain has halted construction of the studio addition, but it has also made it abundantly clear that we need to go a little bit higher because the concrete pads we had installed to scope out the space are underwater. So, off Chris went to Home Depot (yes, in the rain) and got some more concrete pads to raise the beams that will eventually hold the structure.

At this point, we are considering whether to have a step down into the existing studio or to raise the floor, which will give us opportunity to better insulate it. I really want to do the later, but that means emptying out the studio... something that I had hoped to avoid. 

In any case, we'll see what we decide when we get to that point. For now the conversation centers around ideas for improving drainage and channeling the rainwater away from the studio. Another concern is how to do that without damaging my azaleas.



As you can see, there's been quite a bit of progress: the trim and the doors have come off and, fortunately, the shower curtain has done a respectable job of keeping the rain out of the studio. Rain is supposed to stop tomorrow afternoon!

I am so grateful to have such a brilliant husband to do this for me!

Here we go... !!!

Studio tilted to the right

The weather finally seems to have settled down so we have begun preparations for the expansion of my shed-studio (or "sheddio"). This structure was erected in 1998 and has served me very well for the past 16 years. This is my description of my studio in 2011: Fitting Everything into a Small Studio. 

We have (that's the royal "we," actually my husband is doing all the work) taken up the 10x8 ft deck in front of the sheddio and discovered that one side of it has sunk into the ground. You can see in the picture, if you look closely, that the right side is closer to the ground than the left side. So, the first job on the list is to raise the left side of the shed and make it level.

A reorganization is in my future!

I emptied all the shelves on the left side of the building: greenware, bisqueware, a few glazed things, and a plethora of little containers w/ mason stains and underglazes. We eventually figured out that I had 150 lbs of clay stored in that right front corner of the studio, so that had to come out too. 

Jacking up the sheddio.

We rented a hydraulic jack and after several attempts (the jack was sinking into the ground!) and corrections, we were able to jack the sheddio up enough to slip in some shims and get the building level. I'm not exactly sure what the next step will be, but the idea is to build out in front of this building a space at least the size of the old deck, or maybe a little bigger (10x10 ft).

Stay tuned for more!