I made a big push this month to complete many other long-delayed repairs and improvements: electrical wiring replaced, old light fixtures and ugly drop-in ceiling removed, back walls painted, belt sander mounted on a new palette, smoke detector installed, fire extinguishers inspected, outside drainage fixed, steps at the loading dock, and minor repairs to the kilns’ wiring.
This cleared the way for me to measure the space, draw up floor plans and show them to the county’s safety examiner.
Uh-oh….
When he saw kilns, saws, sanders and steel storage shelving on the floor plans, he wanted to classify the studio as a factory, which would have entailed a much more lengthy, costly and involved approval process. But after we talked for more than an hour, and I explained in detail the studio’s contents and activities, he relented and said I could apply as a regular business.
A glass art studio is not much like other businesses, and I’m betting the inspector has never been in a kilnformed glass studio before. So I’ll have to make what we do here seem “ordinary” when the inspector comes.
But I think this studio is extraordinary… and it allows us to make extraordinary glass.
