LeeU

Callies story is very familiar to me. I used to sell ovenware but after a run of customers complaining of their bakers cracking I stopped selling it. I attached instructions on how to use clay pots in the oven, used a clay that was recommended for ovenware but still there are those who don't heed the advice. Last straw was someone who put a frozen brie in puff pastry in my pot then directly into a 450F oven and my sister-in-law using one to bake frozen battered fish in, again from frozen to 450 or so, only partly covering the base of the pot.  I do still make ovenware for our use but not to sell.
Design of the pots used for ovenware comes into play insofar as cracking too. Rounded edge between floor and wall, really even clay thickness, well fitting glaze etc.
Laguna has charts of which claybodies they recommend for ovenware if that's a supplier you use, page 3 of this. 
 

I understand your concerns with bakeware, but you should not be overly concerned as most ceramic will do well for baking. I have made, used, sold bakeware as casseroles, egg dishes and other items using a cone 6 mid range stoneware clay. My glazes are made to be fully vitrified, thus durable one the ware. However, bakeware like other non metallic ware needs to be brought to temp slowly, not loaded into a hot oven from a refrigerator, Corning made much of its from glassware for baking and the rules were slow heating, and slow cooling, thus no thermal shock. I believe these rules hold for most work that is made of ceramic for baking. 
The clays that I have used are SC 112, 211, and 630. I use those because they seem to fit the way I throw, and like to work. They hold up well in firings and do what I want them to without surprises.
 
best,
Pres

This is great but I would encourage you to read the step by step guide from your state posted above its really done well. I think it will remove some of the scare factor. As far as accounting and taxes you will need to adopt real accounting practices regardless of the structure corporate or not so an accountant or your husband can make that a lot less challenging. Tax filings I always outsourced that, it’s not worth my time to learn tax accounting for various states.

Generally a registering agent can be you, a company or a professional individual that meets the requirements of the state. Here is a good LLC guide to give you a better idea of the steps. Years ago I was an LLC in NC, among other states, very similar actually. https://howtostartanllc.com/south-carolina-llc

Welcome to the Forum, Rinny. YES, you can get a resale certificate and buy your materials tax-free, charging your customers sales tax on the product unless they also have a resale cert. You will then have to pay the gov't the sales tax on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis depending on your level of taxable sales...

Only the retail (end user) pays the taxes.  I do see that you are in the great state of CA and I know they do some odd taxes like when you try to leave the state.   
https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/use-tax.htm I only read about half of it but with it being a .ca.gov it should give answer all your questions.  

You'll want to use a clay body that fully vitrifies, and I would go with 3/8" thick if they're over 4" wide.  If you're new to making tiles and aren't set up for making and firing them, doing an entire bathroom floor will be a major undertaking. Tile production is a different beast than making pots, and doing it efficiently requires different equipment and a different way of using studio and kiln space. You may want to consider using commercially available tiles for the bulk of the floor, and just make some accent tiles to personalize it.
Also, the process in that article may or may not work for you. Leaving tiles open on a slab of drywall may or may not allow them to dry without warping. It all depends on your clay body and the humidity level in your studio. With a heavily grogged clay they will be more likely to remain flat, but that type of clay may not be appropriate for the type of tiles you're making. If you're doing any carving then you'll want a smooth body, and they will be more likely to warp. The thickness of your tiles will also affect how easily they warp. Try making a batch and see how it goes. You'll have to figure out what works for your situation.

When we say vitreous, we usually mean not absorbent. A porcelain for instance is vitreous, because it contains extra silica and forms a glass-like substance when fired to maturity. While you do encounter some porous tiles like Saltillo, they’re not ideal for a bathroom, and especially not in a shower. Your clay doesn’t have to be porcelain to have a low absorption rate though. Many of us here make pots for food use, and for that we recommend less than 1% absorbency, even if the work is glazed. In the event the glaze crazes, seepage can happen.
The properties in a clay you’d use to make tiles would be a resistance to warping (which grog can assist with, but may present issues with absorbency in the fired product), low absorption at maturity, and something that looks good with your chosen glazes. I think that going to your local clay supplier or workshop and asking what they have that fits this bill is the best place to start, although it may be tricky. Usually clays that are very dense when fired are also prone to warping and need to be handled carefully in both the making stages and the firing. 
If your supplier has something you think fits the bill, still do some tests before committing to a large run. Clay is a naturally occurring material, and while manufacturers can provide specs, there can be some variance. Here is a link to an article that describes clay body porosity very well. At the very bottom of the page, there is a link that describes how to test your clay body for shrinkage and absorption. Here’s another link that describes how to  test glazes and bring out any possible delayed crazing. You’ll want to keep that whole website bookmarked: Digitalfire is a fantastic free resource for potters.
 

Hi and welcome to the forum!
Honestly, outside of either a professional studio or an educational facility of some kind, prevention is better than cure, especially if you don’t have much of a budget. Good studio habits that keep dust down in the first place are low cost, low input, and highly effective. The air filtering solutions that work are expensive, especially if you’re a recent grad. 
We all know the drill. Wear an N99 or higher respirator, wet cleanup, wet mop, cover your bucket between dry ingredient additions when mixing glazes indoors, mix outdoors weather permitting, work clean, don’t use fans because they stir up dust. Bonus points for things like studio shoes that don’t leave the studio, frequent washing of any towels/cloths/aprons, no canvas on tables,  etc. 
If you’ve got a basement that has a textured floor, get some self levelling compound and make it easier to mop. Or a piece of vinyl flooring if you’re renting. 

Geeze louise, I get exhausted just looking at all that work! And stacking the huge kiln! And everything that went before and will come after! Tells me I made the right choice going into a totally different work-a-day world rather than profesional ceramics, which was my intention until I got to the fork in the road. 
 

Thanks Kelly-I either learned something new or got reminded of something I'd learned & forgotten. When I looked it up, the pronounciation sounded very familiar, tho the info itself not so much.
 

Geeze louise, I get exhausted just looking at all that work! And stacking the huge kiln! And everything that went before and will come after! Tells me I made the right choice going into a totally different work-a-day world rather than profesional ceramics, which was my intention until I got to the fork in the road. 
 

If the small amount of water that’s in underglaze affects your handle joins at the green stage, the join isn’t sound to start with. Or you’re working very, very thinly. 
If you’ve done it properly and wiggled the pieces together until they stop moving, mug handles shouldn’t separate from the body at any stage. Because you’re creating essentially one piece of clay instead of 2, the join itself is very reinforced. If there’s going to be damage to a handle, either the handle should snap off leaving a stub, or it’ll break in a U shape around the join on the body. You may still get some hairline cracks around the edges if the attaching slip shrinks, but at that point those are aesthetic problems, not structural ones. You can smooth that kind of crack out with the point of a wooden tool when the piece is dry.

Well it happened
I was at near cone 10 when I looked in for the first look at my cones (cone 10/11) about 2290 on my digital pyro. This is my 35 cubic foot car kiln-I had just turned off my smaller 12 cubic foot glaze fire in updraft (i'm doing both kilns same day  gklaze fires all this year )
The cone pad had fallen over-nosed dived down sometine during fire.Never had this happen-I made the pads so its all in my court
Now in the past I have blown up cones and discoverd it at red heat and been able to slip with a small anglke iron a new set of cones  in the 4 inch diameter spy plug extremly slowing without blowing them up.
But this at near end point is way different as the time temp has already gone by. so no way to put another cone set in that will be accurate So I look to my log book and see that the end point I shoot for is a soft cone 11 which has about a 40 degree spread in past 6 glaze fires. I pick a middle zone and fire to that and by my gut feeling .
So tonight I'm eating fresh albacore I caught on Monday and beans and squash from our garden wondering about how this kiln load will look in am. I usually am not to concerned about it but this seat of the pants fire is way out of the box. Time will tell. I resisted looking in with a flashlight-I'll take my lumps in am all at one time-underfired or overfired we shall see.
If this was easy everyone would be doing it.

OK, I'll play. Here's my latest footed bowl. It is turned upside down and does double-duty. Lee's idea of making "footware" last and earn it's keep. 

OK, I'll play. Here's my latest footed bowl. It is turned upside down and does double-duty. Lee's idea of making "footware" last and earn it's keep. 

WYSIWYG is "What you see is what you get".  Stroke & Coat does not always fire at mid-range the way the label says.  Also some labels do not mention mid-fire changes at all. I suggest testing each glaze a couple of times and make your own label for how it "really" does at 5-6...that will save disappointment & money & let you know which ones you can count on for expected results  on 5-6 bodies in a 5-6 fire. 

OK, I'll play. Here's my latest footed bowl. It is turned upside down and does double-duty. Lee's idea of making "footware" last and earn it's keep. 

WYSIWYG is "What you see is what you get".  Stroke & Coat does not always fire at mid-range the way the label says.  Also some labels do not mention mid-fire changes at all. I suggest testing each glaze a couple of times and make your own label for how it "really" does at 5-6...that will save disappointment & money & let you know which ones you can count on for expected results  on 5-6 bodies in a 5-6 fire. 

WYSIWYG is "What you see is what you get".  Stroke & Coat does not always fire at mid-range the way the label says.  Also some labels do not mention mid-fire changes at all. I suggest testing each glaze a couple of times and make your own label for how it "really" does at 5-6...that will save disappointment & money & let you know which ones you can count on for expected results  on 5-6 bodies in a 5-6 fire. 

I'm taking some liberty with the "free" part.  The gift that I use is not "in" my studio, it "is" my studio. The gift was me making it to retirement and having enough coin to install the studio & everything in it, in the larger bedroom of my trailor, & the kiln, which is on the formally open back porch, which I was able to enclose with restaurant patio-grade vinyl, essential for New Hampshire winters. Beyond that, my studio has a fair amount of useful things attained by "curb shopping". One find that I love is a green wire shelving unit, close to 5'x3' w/5 shelves,  that I scored from a convenience store (OK, that one was actual dumpster diving). It holds an amazing quantity of tools etc., many of which I also scrounged from here & there. 
 

I'm taking some liberty with the "free" part.  The gift that I use is not "in" my studio, it "is" my studio. The gift was me making it to retirement and having enough coin to install the studio & everything in it, in the larger bedroom of my trailor, & the kiln, which is on the formally open back porch, which I was able to enclose with restaurant patio-grade vinyl, essential for New Hampshire winters. Beyond that, my studio has a fair amount of useful things attained by "curb shopping". One find that I love is a green wire shelving unit, close to 5'x3' w/5 shelves,  that I scored from a convenience store (OK, that one was actual dumpster diving). It holds an amazing quantity of tools etc., many of which I also scrounged from here & there. 
 

Roberta asked me to post the fired piece that I showed in my studio background music comment. Of all things, some of the Korean  (according to Netflix) series soundtrack music generated an energy vibe that helped to facilitate a breakthrough from my morass (which, BTW, is not the same thing as depression, just FYI). That new-to-me music was instrumental to lifting my spirits. I hadn't done any meaningful (to me) clay work in the last 2 years. It took me 5 months to finally have enough to fill the kiln, which  I fired & unloaded a few days ago. Here is the piece:  the Aries Bowl. The other piece I finally finished, over a year later, thanks to the serendipity of my K-Mix playlists is an addition to my Hidden Mask Series, HMS No. 7 Primal. I talked about my thought process & have a pic of the initial form in the Aesthetics/Philsophy Forum (May 2021) under What Was I thinking. (I feel compelled to add that I liked the greenware bowl better than the glazed one and am going to do a close duplicate unglazed using Dover white, a smooth clay,  and a close duplicate with clear glaze on Dragon Fruit, a groggy speckled body (fr. Industrial Minerals Co.).

I'm taking some liberty with the "free" part.  The gift that I use is not "in" my studio, it "is" my studio. The gift was me making it to retirement and having enough coin to install the studio & everything in it, in the larger bedroom of my trailor, & the kiln, which is on the formally open back porch, which I was able to enclose with restaurant patio-grade vinyl, essential for New Hampshire winters. Beyond that, my studio has a fair amount of useful things attained by "curb shopping". One find that I love is a green wire shelving unit, close to 5'x3' w/5 shelves,  that I scored from a convenience store (OK, that one was actual dumpster diving). It holds an amazing quantity of tools etc., many of which I also scrounged from here & there. 
 

I'm taking some liberty with the "free" part.  The gift that I use is not "in" my studio, it "is" my studio. The gift was me making it to retirement and having enough coin to install the studio & everything in it, in the larger bedroom of my trailor, & the kiln, which is on the formally open back porch, which I was able to enclose with restaurant patio-grade vinyl, essential for New Hampshire winters. Beyond that, my studio has a fair amount of useful things attained by "curb shopping". One find that I love is a green wire shelving unit, close to 5'x3' w/5 shelves,  that I scored from a convenience store (OK, that one was actual dumpster diving). It holds an amazing quantity of tools etc., many of which I also scrounged from here & there.