My Dream Garden POttery Studio

In April 2025, I officially launched my garden pottery studio! It was a 5-month slog of ground prep, clearing, tip-trips, building, designing and redesigning, painting, cladding, and filling! There were a lot of learning curves, a lot of long pauses while we had to figure out some logistics, let alone weather, family, and work commitments. There were some injuries, a lot of cups of tea, fire, scrounging and bin-diving, working around Ernie (our dog) who just wanted to be involved, and a whole lot of extreme excitement.

Firstly, I have to say that pretty much this entire studio was built by my husband, Hugo. He has been like a Duracell bunny and hasn't stopped from the day we moved into our new home in Falmouth to the day we launched the studio with prosecco and cake. I owe him so much, and he deserves the biggest shout-out. The next biggest shout-out is to my parents in Australia, who gave us the money to buy our flat-pack shed. Again, we couldn't have done this without their financial aid, and I'm so grateful and so privileged to have them be so supportive and able to help out in this way. Big love to them; I think of them every time I step over the threshold.

How it started

The first place we moved to in Cornwall had a spare room which we converted into my everything studio with a desk, wheel, benches, shelves, and tables so that I could start making part-time while working. It worked pretty well and, again, Hugo made it all happen within days of me saying 'it'd be great to have this here...'. It was small, housed a lot of unsafe materials on a carpeted floor, and my kiln was a long walk away, down a flight of stairs, and generally unsafely housed. It worked, but I dreamed of something bigger, brighter, and much more purpose-built.

We moved to our new home in December 2024, and from the very first day, we began working around the clock to get my dream studio actually happening. We bought this house for a few key reasons, but the biggest reason was because of a back access gate that led straight to a summer house that would be my new studio. It meant students could come straight to my pottery door rather than through our house, it meant I could load my car for markets straight from my storage rather than carry boxes all the way through, and there was already a shed and deck that seemed in decent condition. Fast forward to the day we got the keys, and we were finally able to actually get inside that old summer house... it was a mess. The roof needed fully replacing, the floor was rotten in 3/4 of the corners, and the doors barely shut. It wouldn't function as a pottery.

We were a bit gutted. So we decided to move Hugo's old shed's worth of stuff into the summerhouse while we figured out where to put his things. The summerhouse became the new Hugo's shed, and we committed to buying a new flat-pack shed for me, which would be delivered in the New Year. Our timeline shifted to Hugo needing his space to be finalized so that he could create my studio more effectively. Cue ripping down two other dilapidated sheds, laying foundations, clearing invasive trees, and learning how to lay raised decking to combat a very sloped garden.

It was December in Cornwall. Hugo was working full-time, I was working part-time, it rained nearly every day, and it was never over 5°C. We learned how to sink posts with concrete, and Hugo got to making his dream shed as fast as possible before the ground froze.

Once his deck was done and ready to take the load, Hugo moved the old summer house from the back of the garden, wall by wall, into the new space, replaced the roof with an old metal shed we'd brought from the last house, and repaired the rotten and damaged wood with fresh (scavenged) timber. It was a Frankenstein job, but he loved every moment of it. My mum and dad like to call Hugo Caractacus Potts , and it is VERY apt.

Fast forward again, and Hugo's shed was mostly ready, so it was time to dive into mine. The flat-pack arrived a few weeks into January and sat outside in the rain for a few more weeks while we dug, shoveled, cleared, and moved what felt like tons and tons of soil. We found three WHOLE rat skeletons, countless kids' toys, a near-endless amount of eggshells, and some other weird stuff under the old deck. Hugo set to sinking more foundation posts while I cleared and leveled the ground. It was freezing and wet work but satisfying, as the changes each day felt monumental.

Once the new decking was down (all wood acquired from Trago Mills on specific days when they did 15% off deals during January), it was time to erect the shed. I went to work on a Tuesday while Hugo was on leave and came home to find it just... done!

We also got our flooring - it had to be moppable and durable - from Trago Mills. It was damaged and old stock, so it was reduced by about 90%. We got this big section, which worked nearly to the millimeter, for £13! We laid it with lino adhesive and some strategic cutting. It is EXACTLY the look I was going for, and I was beyond chuffed to see it in there. You'll notice in the photos below there's a section in the back corner with no lino and with big sheets of chipboard - this was where the kiln was to go, so it had to have extra fire-proofing considerations... That's when the bricks got involved.

We discovered hundreds of bricks in the garden, some of which are older than our house, which we decided to use as our under-kiln flooring, with the plan to buy some nice tiles for the back and surrounds of the kiln. We rapidly realized, though, that we'd need to buy a lot of tiles, and we were working on a shoestring budget, so Hugo brightly suggested, why don't we cut a bunch of the bricks in half and use them as tiles on the back? So I got to scrubbing and restoring our ancient bricks for weeks on end while Hugo kept working on the decking, the roofing, and the more important structural bits.

I have to admit I hated this job. Hugo, rightly, refused to do the bricks considering he was doing the rest of the build himself, and I was eager to be actually useful during this process, but I was cursing these bricks by day 2, and it really did take weeks. Not only did I have to scrub each one (in January cold water), but I had to wash them again after they were cut in half. I shan't complain too loudly, though, because, again, Hugo did everything else!

Bricklaying began while our electrician (first ever tradie we've hired!) fitted power from the house up to the shed and wired in my kiln. It was delightful to be able to work later in the evenings with light wired in. I'd never laid a brick, a tile, or anything before, so it was a rapid Google and go kind of process. We laid the floor first and then over the next week worked on laying the back walls with the halved bricks. I foolishly didn't wear gloves for 80% of the process and spent days wondering why my fingers were numb. I forgot to continue our herringbone pattern up the walls, and we definitely did some dodgy cement mixing, but overall I'm really proud of myself for making this happen.

Once the bricks were down, the next step was my heating solution! The previous tenants ripped out the original 1920s fireplace from the house and left it to rust and rot in the garden. While it was a cute garden ornament, Hugo saw potential in it and restored it as best he could by welding new door hinges, new flue controls, new grates, and re-roped the doors, etc. He removed a lot of the rust and fitted a custom franken-chimney, and now I have a wood-burning stove in the studio with a little wood store underneath, a mini kindling chopping block, and an antique copper kettle to heat the water I use while throwing on the wheel. It's extravagant and toasty, and I adore it.

We also loaded in my trinket shelves! My essential knickeryknackery bits and bobs that I think Hugo is releived to not have in the house any more. I am a mudlark, a forager and a bit of a bone collector. My trinket shelves give me so much joy and inspiration and they're pride of place as you enter the studio - full of pots, nature and curiosities.

Hugo added a load of extra bespoke features too. He made custom stands for my pottery wheels using old dining chairs. He fitted old stained glass windows that we saved from a churchyard that was getting rid of them, he cut a hole in the deck for me for the Rowan tree I didn't want to lose, he then put in benches, drawers, and racks for all of my gear (which was still clogging the house in March) and most importantly, he made a place for my hammock to hang. I painted my doors with a slug and a greyhound... we're toying with calling the studio The Slug and Hound. Too British?

We added little wooden mushrooms Hugo made to the outside, I painted the whole shed black, we filled my new 'library' shelf with my art books, strung up a multi-bulb light that our lovely cousins gave us and Ernie laid on the floor, in the way, the whole time. d

In The End

It was getting close to our deadline - Hugo's deployment. The reason we prioritised the studio build and persevered through winter was because Hugo was due to be away for 9 months of the year and I need a space to work from while he was gone. That deadline was end of April and, believe it or not, we put our tools down and toasted the studio's opening a whole month before he left (admittedly he got delayed leaving til mid-May but we're taking that as an early win).

It's done. I have a studio in which I can teach 2 people on the wheel, a wood burning stove, space for my wild clays, my glazes, my raw materials, my pots and spare clay. I have a wedging table, a sink with running rain water (Hugo learned how to plumb), I have storage and I look over our ever-changing garden and two new ponds.

I am imminently going to be teaching, and I am absolutely loving using the studio to make my work. It's toasty warm, the system is working, and I am overwhelmed by how lucky I am. It was hard work; Hugo was tireless and so inventive and creative. To celebrate, we had bubbles and cake with our neighbors and friends, and I recently had an incredible photographer visit to shoot the space... take a look!

The Money Bit

We haven't checked how much in total we spent yet, but we both are estimating under £5K. Check back in a while, and I might have an answer. The shed itself - a 12 x 10 ft BillyOh shed - was the main cost, and my parents very generously covered that for us. The rest was stored pallet wood from the last 5 years of Hugo's hoarding, marketplace purchases, skip-bin finds, and stuff we bodged together or bought on sale. I think the most money we dropped was for the electrician (£1500, and that included wiring in Hugo's shed), followed by new decking wood and the tile splashback for behind my sink (£160).

Now? Now it's time to make, teach and enjoy what we've built. I'm so proud and so grateful.

If you want to see more footage about the build, check out my instagram reels.