Recycling with Rik

I 'love opening the kilns after firing, to see the transformation'

Rik Nelson   /  Correspondent

Jo Sandburg-Smith handpaints and stencils old tiles and sinks at Ceramics Galore in Coeur d'Alene, Ceramics Galore. (Photos by Kathryn Stevens/The Spokesman-Review)

Do you have a bathroom or kitchen sink that's old and dingy? Are you remodeling and just can't fit your old sink in with the new decor?

"Well, if all else fails," says a straight-faced Jo Sandberg-Smith, "get a sledgehammer and make ceramic stepping stones for your garden."

She's joking, of course. Sandberg-Smith, a ceramicist, actually can take a long-used sink and give it new life with fresh glazes, decals, or a combination of both.

While an older sink may have yellowed, she says just a kiln re-firing often brightens it. She cautions that for safety reasons, however, she will only do "old" sinks if they're not chipped or cracked.

"If it's a perfectly good sink otherwise," she says, "we can enhance it with glazes, and recycle it – put it back into use."

But it doesn't have to be an old sink in order for Sandberg-Smith to customize it. Brand new porcelain or fired enamel sinks work just fine, too. Debbie Meredith from Prichard, Idaho, vouches for that.

Meredith says she was remodeling and wanted a special sink for her bathroom. She went to the St. Regis, Mont., flea market and found a small sink, but it cost $500 and she didn't feel its artwork showed up very well. So as an alternative, she bought a plain, inexpensive sink at Lowe's and took it to Sandberg-Smith.

To the Meredith family's delight, Sandberg-Smith delivered a sink with decals of a black bear and her cubs on the face of the basin and vines winding around the rim. The 360-degree application even makes it possible for the design to be reflected in the mirror above the sink.

"Every single person who goes in the bathroom asks, 'Where did you get that sink?'" Meredith says.

Sandberg-Smith has several hundred decal designs in stock and catalogs of thousands of more that can be ordered. Besides animal/wildlife decals, there are lighthouses, landscapes, fruit-and-vegetable still-lifes, baskets of flowers, murals of sea life – just about anything imaginable.

The decals are China-paint glazes backed by glue which holds the decals on the porcelain until fired. Firing permanently fuses the glazes in place. However, Sandberg-Smith says, with fired enamel sinks there's one additional step that's necessary:

"Commercial firing gives the enamel sinks an ultra-hard surface, so first the enamel needs to be softened with solvent. After that the decals will adhere permanently when fired."

The decals and glazes can be applied not only to sinks, but also to tiles, toothbrush holders, cups and glasses, toilet paper canisters, tissue dispensers, and soap trays to create a coordinated ensemble. Sandberg-Smith says she can even do a toilet if it separates into water tank, lid, and bowl, so it will fit in her kiln in pieces.

"It's fun to do the tank top if nothing else," she says. "But I like to start a design, like ivy, at the base of the bowl and wrap it around and around and up onto the tank and then onto the tank lid – maybe adding a fired-gold splash as an accent."

The coordinated look can be applied to kitchens, too. "I can do kitchen sinks up to 29 inches," Sandberg-Smith says. "And then use the sink design on backsplash tiles, kitchen canister sets, spoon rests, salt and pepper shakers, utensil holders, bowls and platters."

She adds that besides getting personalized products, her customers get cost savings as well. "A porcelain sink at Lowe's is about $500 or more," she says. "I'll customize one for $225 and if the person lives in the Spokane or Coeur d'Alene area, I'll deliver it to them free, so there's no shipping cost."

Sandberg-Smith says her parents, Sherry and Tom Hayman, started in the ceramics business for retirement income, both working full-time. She worked for them part-time. "Then a year ago January I took over the reins and now my parents work part-time," she smiles. She's working hard to expand the business but enjoys the job.

"I love opening the kilns after firing," she says, "to see the transformation. Anyone who's worked with ceramics knows the thrill."