The Clay Hole Blog · Studio Tips

Running out of shelf space?

No matter how big or how small your shelf is, eventually you’re going to run out of space.

Let’s talk about that, shall we?

DP Dan PearceFounder, The Clay Hole · March 18, 2025
A member pottery shelf packed edge to edge with unfired work
This is what a full shelf looks like. You have probably owned one.

The actual reason

There is only one reason a shelf ever fills up

There are more pieces on the shelf than there is room to keep them all. That’s it. That’s the whole mechanism.

But what are the deeper reasons shelf spaces fill up?

The answer almost always is that we, as lovers of creation, love creating more, and more, and more.

We put off moving our pieces through the process so we can make more, and more, and more.

We put off sanding, firing, and glazing so we can make more, and more, and more.

We get it. Working clay is fun and fulfilling.

The fix

You need to move your pieces through the process if you want to have more space.

You need to get them off of your shelf and onto the firing tables. A shelf is not storage. It’s a staging area, and staging areas are supposed to empty out.

01

Make it

The fun part. Also the part nobody needs help with.

02

Dry it

Anywhere from 2 days to a month, depending on how thick you threw it.

03

Bisque fire

Free for members. Kilns run when there’s enough work to fill them, usually weekly.

04

Glaze and fire

Glazed work fires to cone 5½. Glaze firing is $0.05 per cubic inch, $4.80 minimum.

Here’s the unflattering part. Start to finish is usually about two months, and the last step costs a few dollars. That is exactly why it’s so easy to put off. It is also the only thing that actually empties a shelf. The four fixes just buy you room while you get around to it.

Use a full shelf as motivation to get sanding and glazing your pieces. That being said, there are four things you can do if you want to fit more pieces onto your shelf.

Fix 01

Level up your membership

The bigger your membership level, the bigger your shelf. Each level doesn’t cost all that much more, but comes with lots of extra shelf space. Purple comes with the biggest jump to a full, deeper, taller shelf.

Every shelf, drawn to scale against each other

Green
24 × 12 × 8″
2,304cu in · $145/mo
Yellow
24 × 12 × 12″
3,456cu in · $170/mo
Purple
36 × 16 × 14″
8,064cu in · $200/mo
Black
48 × 16 × 16″
12,288cu in · $275/mo

Boxes show the front face of each shelf at true relative size. Depth is 12″ on Green and Yellow, 16″ on Purple and Black.

Here’s what each step up actually buys you, in space per dollar:

Green to Yellow

+1,152

cubic inches for +$25/mo

46 cu in per extra dollar

Biggest jump

Yellow to Purple

+4,608

cubic inches for +$30/mo

154 cu in per extra dollar

Purple to Black

+4,224

cubic inches for +$75/mo

56 cu in per extra dollar

Membership levels are not priced on shelf space alone. They also change how many classes you get each month and how many glazes you can reach. The shelf just happens to be the part you feel every single week.

A larger upgraded member shelf with room to spare
A deeper, taller shelf. Same studio, different level.
Upgrade membership levels now
Fix 02

Rent a clay cubby

New bags of clay can be major space hogs, especially on smaller shelves. The Clay Hole rents clay cubbies for $10 a month. It gives you a place to store up to two full bags of clay, off your shelf and out of your way.

$10per month
2full bags of clay
0of it on your shelf
The clay cubby wall at The Clay Hole with bags of clay stored inside
Clay cubbies. Boring, and one of the best ten dollars in the building.

How cubbies work

  • Cubbies are limited. When they’re gone, they’re gone.
  • It renews every month until you cancel it with management by the 24th.
  • There are no refunds if you forget to cancel, including if you’ve already cancelled your studio membership. Cancelling the membership does not cancel the cubby.
Rent a clay cubby here
Fix 03

Put a shelf inside your shelf

There are endless options on Amazon for small shelves made to go inside of cabinets. Bring your favorite and use it on your shelf. We don’t care how high you stack as long as you stay within your space.

Be sure to measure first. Here are the numbers to measure against:

LevelWidthDepthHeight
Green24″12″8″
Yellow24″12″12″
Purple36″16″14″
Black48″16″16″

Buy an organizer a little smaller than your height number. An organizer that fits exactly leaves you no room for the thing you wanted to put on it.

A small adjustable stackable cabinet organizer shelf
This one might do the trick. Any similar one works just as well.
Show me this shelf on Amazon
Fix 04

Play pottery Tetris

If your work is bisqued or dry, you can stack it. Nest the bowls, tuck the small stuff inside the big stuff, and free up a whole row without touching your membership.

Stack it

  • Bisqued work
  • Bone dry greenware, handled gently
  • Nested bowls and plates of similar shape
  • Small pieces tucked inside bigger ones

Leave it alone

  • Anything still wet
  • Anything still leather hard
  • Handles, spouts and rims taking the weight
  • Glazed work waiting on its second firing
Bisque fired bowls stacked and nested to save shelf space
Bisqued bowls, nested. Same work, a third of the footprint.

Rough math

So how much shelf do you actually have?

Pick your level and the size you usually throw. This is an estimate, not a promise. Your mugs are not cubes.

Your level

What you usually make

Purple level, medium pieces

20

pieces on the shelf at once

8,064 cubic inches of shelf

Move up to Black and that becomes 31.

The math: shelf volume, times 55% for the air you can never pack out, divided by the volume of one piece. Anything taller than your shelf simply doesn’t go on it, which is its own kind of answer.

Hopefully this helps

It doesn’t actually matter how big your shelf is.

We have learned that any potter who procrastinates sanding, glazing, and firing is always going to fill their shelves up.

That’s okay. We do it too.

Get a bigger shelf Rent a clay cubby
DP

Dan Pearce

Founder, The Clay Hole

Draper, Utah. Nearly 10,000 square feet, 29 wheels, 650+ glazes, and a whole lot of shelves that are somehow always full.

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