Retro Corner, or three

The lovely Lucy Violet Vintage and her posse have come up with the brilliant idea of getting people to post a pic of their favourite vintage home corner.    

After nearly three years of spending  most of our time in a sloping enclosed verandah, are we soon to be demolishing the back, and extending the original cottage.   So I thought I'd put in this corner, or rather three corners (clever huh) of the shotgun shack's dining room.  I say dining room, it is more a gap between the kitchen and bathroom.   We had some fun putting up random art to make it a bit interesting. 

Some days, but with decreasing frequency now, I feel sad to think that this space will soon cease to exist.  I do know that I will miss our original kitchen wallpaper you can see reflected.   What I won't miss, which if you look closely at the top of the dresser you can see,  is that the floor slopes at a good 10 degree angle.   Happy days.

Borderline

We decided we needed a quick fix solution to some seating down in the new garage/chill out lounge.  Have haemorrhaged money for the past six months, 'budget' was the theme of the day when we went out looking.   There is a great Vinnies depot tucked away in an industrial area that I often pop into, so headed there, where we found this three piece suite.  It is in brilliant condition, teak, solid as with lovely mid century lines.  However someone in their wisdom decided to recover it not that long ago in this fairly ghastly fabric.  Which is a shame, and I did dither somewhat over it - can I look past the fabric? It was one of those borderline decisions.  But do you know what, for $90 for the lot, I reckon I can.   At least it is nice and clean.

If there was a 'most comfortable chair' parade, this would win hands down.

See, I told you it was ugly.

 We bought it home on top of the car and it is now our favourite new spot to hang.  I can't tell you how comfortable those chairs are, I park myself in one of those to watch the sunset and completely forget about all my chores.  Dinner did you say?  

Ephemera forever

I recently found a box of stuff  that I'd packed away when we moved house three years ago.  It is one of those boxes of things that have no obvious classification, purpose, place or value, but just can't be ditched.  Most of it is old packaging (did I tell you my parents never threw out anything?) that I just love looking at for the design, typography, and memories of years gone by.

Can you guess what this was?  You possibly looked  at it every day on the breakfast table.
That's right - pass the marge!

These look 60's to me, and all the candles are still contained therein.

 

Older than me I suspect.  Fifties?

Oh look, another paper bag!

How much did I spend on those cupie dolls?

Two bucks?  Five?

The rest of the items are random vintage items that I suspect will also end up back in the box and put away once more.  

 

What is this you ask?  I wondered myself, aha, take the lid off, pull it upwards and you have a nifty bakerlite travel cup.

Assorted ceramics.

Darts, anyone?

Most of these things I forgot I ever owned.  Which makes me think, or makes me think I should think, do I really need to keep them?  Probably not.  But in the meantime I'll put them back in the box until next time.  Except for the koala, that little guy might make it on the mantlepiece for a while.

Rubber's Made

Those that have been following my blog might remember my rubber flooring post, where I was drooling over this rubber product put down on the floor in the new garage studio.   After much dithering over colours, we resolved our decision making with a 'what the hell, let's have both' solution to the can't-decide-problem.

Work has been frenetic over the past two weeks to get the studio finished for Mother in Law's visit, and I reckon we are nearly there.  Still a long snagging list, but  I suspect that will take a long time to go away.   There's lots to show, but I wanted to just get up some pics of the rubber flooring.

What do you think?  I'm loving it! 

Verge Victory

There is surely no thrill so great as a top verge find.  A few times a year our local council collects virtually anything from outside houses, and some wonderful treasures can be found.  I'd just bought a new TV for our soon-to-be-completed studio, and was subconsciously thinking about having to get some sort of unit for it to sit upon.  Which are universally hideous pieces of furniture, I find.

Driving along yesterday I did the old drive-by double take at a pile of teak coloured furniture.  U-turn.  A few broken pieces, around this - what do you know - TV unit.   Lovely simple mid-century styling, and jackpot, it's a Parker.  A helpful jogger helped me heave it into the back the car.  What loot!  What booty!

What is funny is that when I googled 'Parker Furniture History' I found.... Kylie's blog post on the very same topic!  Parker produced iconic top-end furniture in the mid-century decades in Australia.  This dealer has some lovely pieces, price on application.  I'm loving the no price applied my piece.

Isn't she a cracker?!  Some backyard restoration is underway, one small split that needs gluing.   I'll give it a bit of a wax and polish but apart from that leave as is.   Some days life really is worth living.

Down Time

I try to include some point of worth in my blogposts, but this might just be a post and some pics about the simplicity and pleasure of downtime.   Taking time to smell the roses, or the bush in our case.

I'm not a parent who lives for school holidays, honestly speaking I find having my kids in my personal space 24/7 hard going, but then again I do love the break from making lunches and pestering about homework, dragging out of bed etc.  Sometimes you have to look for the tiny things that come from down time.  These holidays it was Boggle and Uno - in a holiday house with no wifi we had to revert to non digital entertainment.   And with no dishwasher, the kids did the washing up.  Which was kinda nice.

Thankfully we were never too far from good coffee, which came with some old school gaming thrown in.

Perry's Legacy

Perry Lakes was an athletics ground built in Floreat, Perth for the 1962 Commonwealth and  Empire Games (nope never heard of them either).   Some would have us believe it was a dog from day one, unfit for purpose etc.  But Perry Lakes Stadium, until it met the wrecker's ball last year, had a certain elegance and grandeur that bought a whiff of something sophisticated to mid-century Perth.   Generations of budding athletes, and anyone that made it into the inter-school aths team had the opportunity to feel like an olympian for a swift moment or 30.  Its modernist lines and counter-levered canopy just made you feel like you could run faster and be a champion for one day.

This blog Perth 6000 times has also turned an eye to PL's faded glory in this post, where you will find some interesting interior shots.  OK, so it doesn't look that great, but it was derelict by then.

Apparently it was full of asbestos (isn't everything in Australia from that time) and given its location in the heart of the fashionable Western suburbs, the ground and majestic grandstand was always destined to meet the dozers.

Landcorp have developed the site for executive housing which they have creatively called "Perry Lakes".  Marketers have squarely targeted the Boomers and Xgens who will reminisce with fondness their youth and better days, and dig deep for the $1m for 500 square metres of deemed heritage land.

So what has become of athletics in Perth?  Over the road from the old site, we now have the new State Athletics Stadium which is by all accounts a much better prospect for those serious about running fast and jumping high.   But utterly charmless.  Maybe it was built on a budget, but the grandstand does nowt for me.

I was there today.  Not doing anything energetic myself, I hasten to add.

But there is hope!  Back at the old Perry Lakes site the original scoreboard still stands, like a mini stadia in itself, echoing the materials and lines of the now ghost grandstand.  I'm optimistically thinking it might be turned in into a cafe or kiosk, as a nod (hate that expression) to the mid-century styling that dominated this pocket of Perth and the memories of so many, of decades gone.  Or maybe they've just not got round to bowling it yet.