The blue room - painting the mid-century master bedroom

Painting, painting and painting. It's all we ever really do around here...actually, I lie. We've had a few jobs completed, so I will get you all up to speed with our goings-on over the next few blog posts. But firstly, today is all about our blue master bedroom.

A few weeks ago we painted our bedroom a lovely shade of 1960s light blue. Again, we are trying to match the original colours of the house. Jason has been the chief colour matcher and he seems to be nailing the choice each time he goes to buy the paint. Go Jason!

Our bedroom was a mix of the original light blue colour and white - it seemed to be incomplete, like someone gave up when they were doing the job (and for a change it wasn't me!). We were planning on painting the room white however as with our laundry and kitchen we decided to embrace colour.

Blue suits the space and exudes a nice calming ambiance. We're loving it.

The following is a pictorial of our new lagoona teal coloured bedroom.

This is an after photograph of the painting. This shot is of our built-in dressing table.

Jason also re-painted the door which opens out to our backyard.

A corner of our bedroom with the blue coloured walls

In progress shot of Jason painting the walls

Painting white walls blue

 We still have a few things to do in this bedroom, such as changing the window coverings, and painting above the window frames (it just needs to be freshened up with white paint)...all in good time though.

Painting the mid-century laundry

The one-wall-a-weekend painting program has been quickly stepped up to one-room-a-weekend now we are unlocking our doors to be part of Brisbane Open House 2014! Nothing like a deadline to get things moving.

Last weekend we attacked the laundry with a tin of 'fresh frappe' green paint. We intend to keep some of the original colours used in certain rooms of this mid-mod home. 

Our initial thought, before we moved in, was to paint the entire interior white but having lived here for about six months our line of thinking has changed. Yes, who are we? 

I know, the light mid-century colours can be polarising...but we think they're fun and add to the personality of the home. The colour is also entirely appropriate for the era of the house. 

The laundry feels much fresher and cleaner with the newly painted walls. The change is not markedly different, however we believe the overall first impression is better.

After: repainted the laundry walls with light green paint. Jason also had more success painting the stable or dutch door. He's only painted it the once!

In progress shot of the walls as they were being painted

Before: this is laundry when it was owned by the previous owners

Removing the unwanted wood heater

Vale wood heater. It was nice knowing you, even though we never used you during winter. You were like the elephant in the room...taking up too much valuable space. We never took any photographs of you when you became ours because we never thought you worthy...sadly, unloved

For the few cold nights we have in sub-tropical Brisbane we were prepared to sacrifice cosy warmth for more useable room. 

A shot of the wood heater when the house was with the previous owners

A couple of weeks ago we hired a plumber to remove the heater and repair the inevitable hole in the roof. It only took about an hour or so for it to be done. Afterwards, a few days of rain assured us the plumber did a good job because we were leak-free!

Wood heater-free living space. You can see the maple board on the right.

Our next dilemma is to repair the hole in the Queensland maple ceiling. Finding aged maple rotary cut plywood to match the rest of the ceiling is a problem.

The solution we came up with, with our builder, was to re-purpose some old maple wood doors from the old kitchen cupboards which had been stored under the house. Fortunately the previous owners had kept the old overhead cupboards in the garage and they are a close enough match to work

Our builder has fabricated two old doors into one board which he will use to repair the ceiling. You will still be able to tell there was a repair to the ceiling, but that's fine. It all forms part of the history of the house as it evolves.

Removing the wood heater will provide us with more flexibility in our living and dining areas. That is always a good thing.

Brisbane Open House 2014

Attention all archi-tourists: it's that time again when we have to plan our itineraries for Brisbane Open House to be held on the weekend of the 11/12 October 2014.

For those of you not in the know, Brisbane Open House is an annual event which grants the general public access to some of Brisbane's architectural gems. You can read about my experience at last year's Brisbane Open House event here.

Last week we attended the official launch and received our information guide books. The breadth of historical and contemporary properties which will be on show is rich and diverse. There are nearly 90 properties featured in the guide - with 35 new buildings opening their doors this year.

Brisbane Open House guide book

One of those new buildings is also our home...Eek!

We were asked to participate and are among some of the suburban residential offerings in this year's open house program. Our home is listed as the AF Dawson residence in the program and you can book a tour of our place via the ballot system on the Brisbane Open House website. Go on, we'd love to meet you!

AF Dawson residence

We are very excited to be part of this year's event as hopefully it will raise awareness of the importance of preserving mid-century homes. Too often, homes like ours are unsympathetically renovated or even demolished to build homes which are generally poorly designed and constructed...And we can't have that, can we?

Our home was designed by an award-winning Brisbane architect called Peter Heathwood - it was drawn as a specification house for builder AF Dawson in 1962. The house was owned by the one family until we purchased it earlier this year. It's a great home and we really love it.

Railton House. Image from here

In the open house program there are other mid-century residential homes and buildings which are 'must-sees' for the mid-mod enthusiast. My pick is Railton House and Office located in Spring Hill, Torbreck Home Units in Highgate Hill, Jacobi House in Indooroopilly. You can check out the Hot Modernism suggested itinerary on the Brisbane Open House website to see what else is on offer.

Because we are part of the event it means my 'archi-touring' will be curtailed to just one day. I've got my heart set on seeing the old Boggo Road Goal built in 1903 and also the 2014 Christian Street residence designed by architect James Russell.

If you're in Brisbane which  buildings do you plan to visit?