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09/22/2006: "cupboard under the stairs or enameling 101 part three"
a little detour in the enameling 101 series to talk about studio space and safety. i had my enameling setup in a corner of the workbench in the basement. it was working fine, but andy and i have been on a mission to reclaim portions of our house that have been surrendered to the chaos for the past few years. last weekend we targeted the canning cupboard, a quaint little room full of shelves that was used by the previous owners to store multitudes of canned goods. (we can tell this by the presence of a thermometer to make sure the room stayed at an appropriate temperature, the potato drawer complete with newspaper clipping of "how to store potatoes" etc) the canning cupboard has been storing junk since we moved in. so we cleaned it out. and then we remodeled. we removed all but one of the shelves on one side. that shelf is now a great countertop for glass central. on the other side, we pulled out the front board from each shelf to make them a little narrower and give a little more space in the room to move around. the room even has a tiny little window that opens and thanks to andy a nice new outlet for my lamp and kiln.
and then we moved all of the glass in. enamels, stained glass, mosaic supplies. we are great dabblers and this stuff has been scattered all over the basement. now it has a home! the other advantage of this is that the glass is now contained. since enamel is powdered glass, you really don't want it making its way all over the house. i always wear a dust mask while i am working. it is a pain and i don't like it, but the thought of breathing glass just makes my skin crawl. i also wear an apron and keep an old towel in my lap. glass dust ground in to your clothing is yucky too. my nice linoleum countertop is easy to wash down and so stylish, no?