Quick Fix

I spent most of yesterday cleaning and reorganizing after the Hallowe'en season, and took some time to get into the studio and start to get that back into shape. It was a task too-long neglected because of time constraints and my injury, so it felt good to get in there and start to set things to rights.

One of the issues I have in my studio is that of space. I have glaze and clay reclamation buckets just like any potter does, and these take up floor space. Lifting heavy buckets to put them on a shelf and out of the way is not the best thing for me to do, but having them in the way no matter where I put them on the floor was getting pretty ridiculous, too. If I stuck them by the kilns and away from my cabinet doors, I invariably had to get to something in that area. Put them in front of the doors and I will guarantee that within half a day, I'd have to lift them out of the way to get at what I needed. Every so often, I wash down my floors to keep the dust down, and carrying them outside in order to clear the floor was something I'd have to get Mr. ShellHawk to do. 

I hate imposing on him like that.

So I was reading an article in one of my clay magazines about how someone had a similar issue. He made what was essentially a round platform, cut to be a bit wider than a five gallon bucket, put a rim around the top so the bucket doesn't just slide off, and stuck castors on the bottom.

Genius. Simple genius.

I have a neighbor who's handy and would probably make this for me, but fortunately for him, I was getting a few things at Lowe's and saw an even simpler solution: rolling plant stands. I looked at them and thought they'd be perfect, but ran over and grabbed a five gallon bucket to be sure it would fit right. Score!

It worked perfectly. Cleaning yesterday was so much easier! I could just roll things out of the way! Hurrah!

Seriously, it doesn't take much to make me happy.