Tales from Turtle Woman Ceramic Studio: Episode 4: Tar, Pea Gravel, and a Table With a History and a Future

Further progress was made on the studio during September 6-11. However, I was out of town until yesterday and was unable to document it. I know all my Dear Readers are really eager for the update, so....Here it is!The wall was waterproofed and a firm foundation was poured and cured. The back yard was further devastated by the arrival of pea gravel, which was poured into the stairwell and inner fortress area. Regarding the equally important aspect of the interior furnishing of the studio: My son-in-law Mike is in the process of giving me an absolutely grand Christmas gift. He is refinishing the ancient work table from our basement for use in my studio! (Forgive me if I rave like Eloise in the Plaza!) This table, made of walnut, has been in our basement for perhaps one hundred years. When we bought our house thirty-five years ago, the previous owners asked if it would be okay to leave it where they had found it since it was such a cumbersome piece. They said it had been in the house when they bought it. (I think we're only the fourth owners of this house. George and I spent one really thrilling vacation--yeah--researching our title. An Irish carpenter built this house for his own family. The original sink was so low--I always thought he must have had a short wife.... Where the Sottiles' house now stands there was once the garden for our house, and the adjacent house was sort of a copy of this house which the carpenter also built.) Back to the table: we have used it for everything from laundry sorting to ceramics supply storage through the years. Originally, the “canning kitchen” for our house was in the basement and I am assuming this was the work table. We even noted a few blobs of peach-colored paint that was the kitchen color when we bought the house, showing that every owner had its own use for this table. (I have to say, that old paint was hard to wedge off. Paint remover wouldn’t touch it!) This table so resonates with our house’s past, I thought it would be an ideal way to carry the mellow old-home karma into the studio. It will serve my purposes well—already so battered that I won’t have to worry about clay dust or glazes; yet beautiful in its own rustic, mismatched way. Although Mike isn’t done yet, he got the finish down to the point where he could begin to apply walnut stain and sand it down with steel wool. A few more hours whenever he can return to Milwaukee should finish the job! Then it’s just a matter of waiting for the time we can place the table in the studio.

It is now Wednesday, 9/15. Today Greg the Builder and an assistant came in with the first timbers—measured them and made ready for the flooring. He will bring me pictures of possible doors. We will have to choose very quickly so progress can continue. Also, he’ll bring pictures of the skylight. He told me it was time to go ahead and select the flooring and recommended The Tile Store out on Hwy. 100. Maybe we’ll do that on Saturday.