Sign of the times

Having lost my bloggin mojo, it seems to have found me again.  Not that life is any less stressful or demanding or crazy, but suddenly I feel the urge to purge.

 

Picking up on the last post, whilst pulling out the timber frame of the old addition, little wads of newspaper rained out, which dates the addition: 1957.  The people that lived in our house were devout Catholics, so I'm guessing the pages from the tabloid and decidedly saucy Perth Weekend Mail were courtesy the building chaps.

 

This first piece is a classic.  Meet Patsy (another Patsy!), who interestingly comes from the area where we live. 

 

 
She's pretty gorgeous.  Cant quite make out what it she is holding, could be anything.  A radio? Pool ball?

But wait, let's read all about her ....  come hither...... what!  She's only 15!!



I was thinking this would make a fun item to frame and put in the loo, but I have to say, I'm wavering.  Yes it is an interesting piece of mass media that illustrates how times have changed, but do I really want my 11 year old daughter thinking this  is where she might see herself in four years time?  Prudish, I've never been, but I've got mixed feelings here.

Let's see, what else.  Oh my!  Nudist sunbathing in Geraldton!  I also find this pretty out there, for 1957.  Who would have thought that the local tabloid rag in this little town would have been so risque?

 

And now, moving away from salacious gossip, some useful advertising... for asbestos.  We've just spend three grand having all the asbestos in our old addition removed by men in white suits with rolls of black plastic.  There was a shitload of it.  Cheap, readily available and totally indestructable, it formed the fabric of so many Australian suburbs over the second half of the twentieth century.

Now James Hardie Industries face the wrath numerous courtcases and responsibility for many deaths in Australia, from the illnesses associated with asbestos mining and use. 

 

I was glad to see the back of it, as the ute travelled off down the lane, to deposit it in landfill somewhere.  Oh dear.

Ground Zero

Demolition is now complete. The guy is in with his bobcat today to clear away the final debris of our house's rear.   The lavvy was the only thing left by the time he arrived this morning.  As you can imagine, there has been lots of great photo opportunities with the below, which I won't share.

I've been sifting through the soil which was underneath the stumps, the builder thinks I'm mad.  There are lots of little fragments of packaging and other ephemera which are like clues and DNA to the past life of this house and its inhabitants. 

 

I've also been taking photos from this vantage point below nearly every day.  My plan is to do a time lapse series of the old coming down and the new going up.  Given the drip-drip approach to our building budget, that is going to be one hell of a file, if I take one every day.

You can see the old kitchen wall, which would have been original to the house, whereas the section to the right which housed a dining area and bathroom were added in the 50s.  When we were pulling it apart we found a load of newspaper rolled up to fill gaps from 1957.  More on that later.

Timber!

I've been stupid busy the past few months, blogging is a distant and luxurious memory.   My book is soon to be printed (another post, note to self: write) and the house reno has now well and truly kicked off.

We've now moved into the recently completed garage/studio and set up residence for the foreseeable future, while the house is partially demolished and extended.  Some say we are mad, some say genius.  Time will tell.  If we are all still speaking to each other in a year's time it will be cause for celebration in itself.

Task one: turn garage into livable dwelling.  Upstairs we have loo, shower, kitchen, so downstairs is sleeping zone.  Our lovely builder put up this partition made from a bunch of Victorian pine doors we'd had getting in the way for the last ten years.

That's one less pile of crap under a tarp to shimmy around. 

So work begineth.  The old side sleepout was first to go.  One push, give or take, and it's gone.

Then work moves to the rear - old kitchen, diner and bathroom.  It's clinging on a bit harder, but another day or two and it will also be toast.

The plan is to reserve all the old jarrah timbers and reuse them in the build, somewhere, somehow.  Cue: five more piles of crap under tarpaulin.

When the inside wall skin was removed from the kitchen, this was revealed.  It's the old original weatherboard wall, with flaking paints and lovely patina. 

We might try and fiddle less rather than more with that and enjoy its distressed tones.  Not that there will be much distressing to do, that's for sure.

Fun and games

It's a long story that I won't regale, but just recently we inherited a box of old children's games.  The sort that would be kept in Grandma's sideboard.  

Blogging has taken a bit of a back seat for me at the moment as life is a bit crazy, but I had to share these, in the meantime.

The awful thing is that I've left them lying around for the past three weeks and no one seems very interested in playing with them.  Maybe my kids are too old, or maybe there too many screens in this house to detract from any interest in them.   Which makes me feel sad and a bit ashamed.

I particularly love these, I've never seen balloons sold with their own pump before.  

So it's all very cute but pretty useless, it would seem.  Nevertheless, up to the loft they go.

Understatement

I just love that understated architectural style that was mid century design in the sixties.  Detail and decoration were nestled in a distinct coma, in between curvy lines in the fifties, and seventies look-at-me chic.   Sixties buildings can look a bit nothing and shabby now, but when you see a good solid example you just know it needs to be appreciated.   This house is also good example.

I'm still trying to find out the date of this school sports pavilion, but I'm guessing it was mid sixties.  I just love its cool pale materials and elegant lines.    Hey, this is the second post I've written about sport-associated buildings.  That's weird.  But they are interesting, because they are often buildings that are not heavily invested in, so it is interesting to see how 'cheap' structures were designed in years gone by. 

On a sunny winter afternoon, even I could be convinced to sit here through a rugby game.

If this ever gets demolished god forbid, I'm first in line for the clock.

Perfectly positioned to face East away from the afternoon sun.

I'd say that sign is original, love that font.

Back int the days when your station meant something, a prime parking spot.  The old sign writing, I wonder why the newer plaques were removed?

There was a lot of this.

That bench sure ain't going anywhere.  

That's Glassy

Ho hum.  Ever feel a bit like that?   I find a spot of op-shopping always perks me up and restores my will to leave the house, so off I set. Yesterday I got me to Anglicare with a mission, to find a nice big glass vessel of some sort to make a table centrepiece incorporating candles, shells and sand.  Again, not original, but a lovely afternoon spent at the beach chilling in the winter sun on Sunday inspired me.

My mother has a ceramic 'vase' like this which she uses to display flowers like camellias that don't have stems.  It was three bucks, fits the bill and I love it already.  Tick.

But wait, what is this I spy?

A lovely set of six tumblers.

I need more glasses like a hole in the head.

Sixties, seventies?

Fifty cents each, how could I not?!



















They are lovely and fine, which tumblers are often not.

One even has the label still affixed.  I'll bet they were stowed in a glass fronted cabinet and kept for best for the best part of forty years.

I was curious to know about 'Panzerglas - Made in Spain'...

I was expecting to find a glass factory, but no, results delivered pictures of glass used in German WWII Panzer Tanks.  WTF?   Panzerglas make industrial strength, indeed bulletproof glass.  To this day.  I did find one site that looks like a kind of Spanish eBay which has similar glasses to mine for sale.  But they don't look very bulletproof.

Sometimes a peripheral pleasure in collecting old domestic junk can be found by delving into its provenance.  Gives my op-shopping therapy a bit more meaning anyway, which is good enough for me.

Bits and Pieces

Some strange blog gremlin deleted this post which I was positive I posted.  So tedious rewriting, but rewrite I must.

When we dug up the back yard to build the garage studio, I collected up all the old china and glass that surfaced.  Such was the common practice, to bury your rubbish in the garden in times gone by.  I was going to plug some of into the concrete floor when it was poured, but somehow it did not feel like the right thing to do.  So I thought I'd create something to hang on the wall instead.

This is what I started off with.  The hardest thing was working out how to get it all to stick hard enough to be hung and not slide off.  

A good half hour cruising the adhesives isle of the hardware shop and I came home with a tube of silicone.  Which worked a treat.

I'd love to say this was all my original creative genius at work but alas, I shamelessly pilfered the idea from this wonderful exhibition I went to a few weeks back, with beautiful artworks all around the theme of flowers, using a huge range of materials.  Here is the link to the project, Fingers and Petals.  Aren't they stunning.

I think it came together pretty well.

Some friends dropped in for a cuppa and tried to press upon me some of their own broken crockery, but I politely declined.  All elements MUST be sourced from our little plot.  It is a bit like keeping a record of  the DNA of our home.

I had this box frame for another abandoned art project (what, you mean you don't have any of those?) which is perfect for it.