Arctic glass for casement windows

Cracked glass is not a good look. And we are sporting such a look in the sunroom. A couple of window panes were accidentally broken during installation. Ooops!

I've been hiding the cracked glass in my photographs of the sunroom.  But there is only so long we can keep up the façade of perfect windows. I know, the shame.

Now that painting in the sunroom is nearly finished, the glass has to be replaced.

I called a large window replacement company which quoted us $300 to have someone replace two medium sized panes of glass. After receiving that quote, I mentally delegated the entire job to Jason.

He's a handy kind of a chap...Why can't he do it?

I rang a second place called Decorative Glass which is a family owned business established in 1921 and based in West End. They sell Arctic Glass  - the obscure patterned glass which is typically used in old Queenslander windows.

I ordered two panes of glass to fit the measurements of the windows. I measured twice. Actually, three times, just to be on the safe side.

The guy at Decorative Glass said I needed to measure the windows from the outside and take about 4mm off each measurement to ensure an easier fit. He said most windows are not square so taking off a little more would ensure they wouldn't crack during installation.

Total cost of the glass: $33.

If you peer into the background of this image, you will see one of the windows boarded up with ply. Ha!

This weekend, Jason will install the glass using some trusty window putty. I hope he's reading this. This blog is like his to-do list!

Featherston chair

Sit down in the lotus position and use your best meditation voice as you read.

Omm. The Featherston chair that I plan to buy is equivalent to Jason buying a swish suit.
Omm. The Featherston chair that I plan to buy is equivalent to Jason buying a swish suit.
Omm. The Featherston chair that I plan to buy is equivalent to Jason buying a swish suit.

That's the mantra I am practising to help alleviate the guilt when my Featherston chair arrives in the not too distant future.

A310 H chairs
The armless chair is ours

Yes, that's right. There's an A310 H Grant Featherston occasional chair  earmarked for our bedroom, waiting to be reupholstered by Colin the Upholsterer. It is very exciting.

We chose a dark green fabric in a wool tweed which will work well in our bedroom.

I am buying the chair off my friend Chris, who collects Featherstons. The chair, which is a Space dining chair designed in 1953, is surplus to his needs, as he's branching out into Robin Day designed furniture from the UK. Wouldn't you love to have that predicament?

It's a nice little chair to add to our collection of Australian made furniture and look, Jason would just splurge on another swish suit if I don't get in before him.

The chair will be a very late birthday gift from Jason and it will give me an inordinate amount of pleasure.

Jason's mantra:
Omm. Buy the f*cking chair and stop whingeing about my suits.
Omm. Buy the f*cking chair and stop whingeing about my suits.
Omm. Buy the f*cking chair and stop whingeing about my suits.

The Sow's Ear in print

As promised, here is the print ad in which the Sow's Ear was the back drop. It was featured in today's Sunday Mail.

It was a really interesting day when they came out to shoot. I tried to stay out of the way as much as possible which was difficult since I am such a sticky beak.

The producers of the ad arrived first thing in the morning. They set up under one of our carports and had access to our downstairs toilet and laundry sink for the talent and crew to use while they were here.

It was a very painless process for us and we really would not have known they had set up camp at our place for over two hours. They organised refreshments from a local coffee shop which is literally a two minute walk from our place.

This is a back view of the pose in the ad.  I was looking out the front entry lattice when I took this photo.

Lizzie the Director was the liaison person on the day. She was fabulous. I think I thought that because she told me her cat shared the same name as Son #3. Same middle name too.

We're watching #3 closely for fur balls now.

The crew packing up under the carport where they had set up camp

After the shoot, I signed all the relevant paper work and found out the producers were mad keen Art Deco collectors. Don't you just love meeting interesting people who collect things?

So there you have it. We finally got an ad. Thanks Qld Film Locations! It was really fun.

I like that the Sow's Ear has been captured in print and that we have something tangible to pop into our house history file.

Brisbane mid century house snippet in Inside Out Mag

Our good friend Chris had a small snippet about his home published in the latest Inside Out Magazine. It is always so exciting when someone you know is in one of these magazines.

Chris is an avid mid century chair collector. He concentrates on mainly Australian furniture with a smattering of English and Danish design interspersed into the mix. 

snippet from Inside Out Magazine

Chris's home is a testament to the value of saving Brisbane's mid century houses. When he and his partner, Susan, bought the modernist house a few years ago, the previous owners had done a poorly thought out Tuscan renovation. Remember when it was all the rage in the 90s?

Anyway, the house looked like sh*t. And a few people thought they were mad to buy the house at the time.

Fast forward to now, you'd never know there had been anything remotely Tuscan desecrating the highly modern home. Although some of the original features could not be reinstated, the home is now a better reflection of the architect's intent when it was originally built in 1961. 

Mid century house in Brisbane
image courtesy of here

We got the ad!

It was a nervous, nail-biting wait near the phone...No, not really but I did double time it to the phone when it rang last night.

And yes, it was the call back to say our front fence made the grade for the print ad (i.e crappy enough).

The Sow's Ear was a hive sty of activity with all the photographs taken early this morning. The ad campaign is scheduled to appear in the newspapers this weekend.

All in all, it was a very good experience - the ad producers could not have been any nicer.

Our mismatched front fence. Jason may or may not repaint it. It hardly seems worth it...what would you do?

Also, our celebrity front fence did extremely well to withstand the touch of a paint brush without collapsing. Thank goodness for paint and habit!

No doubt, this will probably be the fence's last hurrah before we demolish it. We don't want it to get too big for its boots and develop a diva-like attitude, do we?