A warm welcome starts with your home’s entryway. For seasonal design tips, we talked with Mose Lenowitz, owner of Pottery House in Tumalo.
Pottery House opened its doors in June of 2020, at the height of the pandemic. With a goal of offering unique home and garden supplies, and a focus on beautiful and sturdy pottery for Central Oregon outdoor living spaces, Lenowitz says he anticipated local residents yearning for ways to dress up their home during this time. “I had the thought that everything can’t just stop,” Lenowitz states. “I thought about American tenacity and willpower and whatever that is that makes us overcome. I knew opening the shop was what I needed to do.”
Featuring pottery of all shapes, sizes and colors imported from all over the world, along with water features, a wide array of art and supplies for home and garden, and a unique gift shop, Pottery House is a one-stop shop for those looking to dress up their outdoor living spaces. “We have pottery and art from local artists,” Lenowitz notes. When choosing his outside sources for pottery, Lenowitz applies his vast knowledge and expertise of pottery quality and strength, down to the materials and processes by which it is made. “Vietnam has some of the strongest, if not the strongest pottery in the world,” he explains. “This is because their clay has silica in it and they fire it in excess of 2000 degrees, so it fuses together in a way that prohibits water from getting into cracks and freezing, thawing and falling apart like other pottery does.”
“All of our outdoor pottery is frost proof,” states Lenowitz. He says that often people move to Central Oregon from other areas and bring their pottery with them. “It can be a disappointment when their pottery cracks and breaks because it was not made to stand up to our climate here.”
A cozy and personable shopping experience open year-round, customers arrive at Pottery House as much for the design tips from Lenowitz as they do for the distinctive pottery and design elements sold here. Pottery House offers delivery services for a fee, and they hope to collaborate in the near future with local area artists to facilitate classes in pottery, glass works, metal works and much more.
“Your home is where you restore yourself, so when you recreate your home, you are recreating yourself in some way,” Lenowitz says. “When you decorate your porch or entryway, everyone sees it, it’s something to be proud of and talk to people about . . . our homes foster connection in so many ways.”
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Seasonal Home Entryway and Porch Design Tips from Pottery House:
● Take three pots of the same color and shape, small, medium and large. Place the largest one on one side of the entryway, with the two smaller pots on the other side. Use smooth pots and fill them with branches of different colors and textures to reflect the season. Choose pottery that reflects the season and tie it in with other home elements.
● Dried bamboo can be cut to length and displayed in pottery.
● Dried flowers and plants like Rabbit Brush, Yarrow, Manzanita and Sage can be great additions to pottery.
● Use unique furniture like Deschutes barrel stave Adirondacks with a side table or a Talavera-topped bistro set.
● Showcase glass and steel artwork, sculptures or metal wall art by local artists. Teak stars or metal art can hang on pillars.
● Use winter-hardy Dwarf Conifers and Blue Arrow Junipers.
● Aged-steel trellises of various heights and styles can go into pots and be dressed up with string lights, decorations and bows, among other touches.
● Large hand-blown colored glass cylinders on wrought iron stands can hold electric candles or lights.
● Chimineas for larger porches offer an alternative to standard fire pits.
Note: All design elements can be found at Pottery House, collected with care from our fragile high desert (USFS offers “Special Forest Products” permits to collect pine cones, boughs, dead branches and more at usda.gov), or may be items you already have at home.