One wall a weekend painting

The long weekend provided us the right impetus to clear out some of the overgrown garden and to continue painting the living/dining room. Three whole days in a row is such a decadent luxury in DIY land and we didn't want to waste it.

One wall a weekend painting. The living/dining area 

Jason got stuck into the painting. The goal is to paint one wall a weekend, so our living room is cleaner and fresher. Small bite size pieces is the method of attack. The most time consuming part is the taping up of the walls for the cutting-in as there are so many timber architraves and strips in this mid-century house.

The finished product...it's like we never painted. Ha!

Jason painting the black timber ceiling beams. Notice how he hasn't taped up. Go  steady hand Jason!

We also have lovely black timber ceiling beams which need to be repainted. Jason used a matte black chalk paint to freshen it up. It provides a crisp contrast to the Queensland maple timber ceiling. He only painted one of the beams and already it has given our living room a real lift.

The finished product...it's like we never painted. Ha!

Most of the changes we have been making to the house are very subtle. When people come to visit us, they don't actually notice if we've done anything new to the house. But that's okay. I kind of think that is the mark of a good restoration/renovation when people think it is as it should be. Hopefully the cumulative effect of all the changes will bring this house back to its former glory.

This one whole section of wall is now finito...as is that one strip of ceiling beam...

And the skip bin was a great investment for the long weekend. We cleared most of the vegetation which was covering our garden shed. It's just tidied that portion of the yard and we were able to give the rest of the garden a much needed prune. Hooray for long weekends!

Skip bin being delivered. It took us one morning to fill up!

Happenings and a house profile

Not a huge amount has been happening around here, and is the main reason for the very quiet blog...can you hear the crickets?

Plans are underway though to tackle a few jobs this coming Queen's Birthday long weekend. A skip bin is being delivered later today - a long overdue garden clean out is required and we have to prune back some of the many established bushes and trees, to bring them back to life.

A mature bottle tree and Birds of Paradise are among the treasures to be found in our garden.

We also plan to paint another living room wall in our one-wall-a-weekend method of attack 

And in other news,  if you don't already read Walk Among the Homes blog, you should! It profiles our new house. You can see the before shots of our mid-mod home HERE. The lovely Elizabeth dropped in one morning, a week or so before we moved in, and took some fab photos of the empty house. Enjoy!

Original joinery at Mid Century home in Brisbane’s south.
Photo by Elizabeth Santillan www.walkamongthehomes.com.au

Hope everyone has a happy and productive long weekend!

1960s bathroom fittings: an update

Remember how we were searching high and low for that elusive towel rail bracket for our bathroom? You can read here if you missed it.

Well, we found it. Actually, we didn't find it...a blog reader did! Thanks so much Alex!

close up of our mid-century towel rail bracket

I received an email from Alex alerting me to an eBay listing selling Art Deco bathroom fittings. Never in a million years did I expect to find the exact same towel rail bracket under that heading. I was mistakenly searching for terms like 1960s, retro, modernist and mid-century!

The tip of the day is look under the term Art Deco when all things fail in your search for mid-century items!

I was able to approach the seller and ask if he would consider selling the towel rail separately...which he very kindly did. The towel rail was from Melbourne of all places. Great that it can have a permanent holiday in sunny Queensland.

The towel rails are extra. extra long - perfect for our family of five. I forgot to hang my towel up!

Jason installed the bracket straight away and we've been enjoying the luxury of matching towel rails. Hahaha!

The 1960s towel rails unadorned

Anyway, it's the small things which make all the difference.

The paint brushes are out...

We've picked up the paint brushes again...I am using the royal 'we', of course, as it is Jason who is the Master Painter around here.

Taping around the doors and ceiling, ready for some paint.

It is a gentle start to restore and freshen up this modernist home. When the vertical blinds in the lounge room  were removed a few weeks ago, it revealed a raw pine mullion between the two glass sliding doors... which Jason was compelled to paint.

Some shirtless painting...purely to indulge his dwindling fan base...

You see, the glass sliding doors are not original to the house. This mid-century beauty would have had slightly larger aluminium sliding doors. In the original plans of the house, Lidco glass sliding doors were specified. For one reason or another, the doors were changed...most probably because the original Lidco sliders would not have locked effectively or became hard to slide over the years.

They would have been similar to the sliding doors found in a Robin Spencer designed house I visited earlier this year. You can read about it here. In a perfect world we would like to restore the sliding doors back to what it would have been...all in good time though.

1960s glass sliding doors 

Regarding the painting, at least it is a start, albeit a very small start...We will progressively paint all the other walls in this room in vivid white acrylic which seems to give the dark plywood ceilings an instant lift.

Small start to repainting the modernist house

A new mid-century dining suite

We had no particular desire to change our dining table when we moved to our mid-mod house...but when one of your mates rings up out of the blue and says they have a 1960s DQF dining table and chairs for sale, you can hardly say no? Surely?

DQF dining suite

Well, we could have, but we didn't! The dining suite is a perfect match for the house...it is  also the very reason why we ended up moving to this house if truth be told. We went to the first open house inspection because I spotted a DQF dining suite in the real estate ad (you can read about it here). We would not have even bothered going to see the house if it weren't for the furniture. What a classic!

photo of when the previous owners owned the house

So it kind of seems fitting that we ended up buying a DQF dining suite. Ha! It's like it was always meant to be with the house.

For those not in the know DQF stands for Danish Quality Furniture which first began making Danish style furniture in Brisbane during the late 1950s. It was a family business set up by Danish emigres. They were renowned for producing the finest quality modern style furniture made in Queensland.

DQF dining suite

Our new old dining suite is very cool. I believe it is made out of black bean timber and the chairs are upholstered in black vinyl. The table is actually round but we have extended it to form an oval to accommodate our family during meal times.

The entire suite is quite petite. It is not made for big people. I guess it was produced in a time when people were traditionally shorter in stature and of a leaner postwar austerity measures build. Ha! You're constantly reminded of any excess weight you're carrying when sitting on the chairs, despite them being solid!

We are missing one rogue chair though. We only have five...Wish me luck finding it!