Thursday, August 23, 2012

I SHOULD be throwing mugs, but....

the leather hard tiles, back in 2010, when I was musing about where they would go
the finished desk top
buttering the back of the tile
spreading more mastic


setting the tile into the mastic

wiping off the extra mastic. 
For a number of years I have wanted to fix up the top surface of the old Steelcase desk that has been in my studio.  It actually belongs to our son, Pete, but I am 'storing' it, and have painted the drawers and sides.  But the top remained a little raw, so this week I decided to tile it.  I had done tiles (4" hexagonal, unglazed, fired to cone 2) which I thought I might adhere to the foundation of the house up by the porch.  But I only had enough to do one section, and once I started looking at the area, I realized that I had an old farmhouse on fieldstone foundations, with a kind of cement covering to the foundation, and the tiles would be out of character, and I probably would need years before I got enough done to do the whole house.  Instead, I decided to tile the top of the desk!  I wanted it to remind me of the old tile floors in France---

4 comments:

  1. I bet it turned out well. Final photo?

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    1. semi-final photo is the one at the top, from the left side of the desk, after I'd waxed it. I really wanted to do the whole floor, but that would have been nuts, since I really (!) do have to make pots, and I really don't have to do interior decorating in my studio... but it's fun (or, 'funner') than regular work, sometimes, and definitely an avoidance technique. I'll email you the final pix, as well.

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  2. It took me 5 attempts to sign in with those distorted words, anyway i wanted to say I liked your design for the desk and would like to see photo of it finished.

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  3. hi, Mary Lou! Those distorted words always trick me--anyway, the final (as of now) photo is at the top of the entry, here, though I am only now making the little triangular pieces which will fill in at either end. When it was grouted, and had dried, somewhat, I waxed it with butchers' wax.

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