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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Formica Table

Formica and other plastic and composite materials really took off in the 1950’s. Tables such as this form the tip of the iceberg when it comes to creative possibilities with newly-found materials. The combination of natural and manmade opens up a whole new world of interior design.

Description source:
Budget Direct

View the original image at Queensland State Archives:
Digital Image ID 16317

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Mid Century Modern

1940s-1950s

Australia took a while to cotton on to the modernist design trend, with local modernist designers reaching international success in the 1970s. When we did catch up, we became truly obsessed.

The mid-century modern design movement began in the 1940s, a straightforward style that seemed appropriate in wartime.

Mid-century modern – often just called modernist – furniture was about being minimal. Furniture served a purpose, and function became the primary focus of all designs.

For this reason, lines were kept clean. Few design elements were featured (and if they were, they were kept subtle). Furniture – especially designer chairs – came to resemble sculptures.

Borrowing from the Art Deco movement, geometric shapes remained important influences. However, in contrast, asymmetry grew popular.

Modernist furniture embraced modern materials – chrome, formica and vinyl. But modernist designers also adopted industrial machinery to churn out mass-produced items.

Mid-century modern furniture still holds sway

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The 1950s kitchen

Although the kitchen was commonly situated at the back of the house, it became a central part of home life in the post-war period.

The 1950s kitchen was invariably U-shaped and it was where the housewife spent much of her time. She had all the latest appliances, from a mixmaster for baking to the latest bubble fridge.

Decor was a whirl of pastels and florals.

Motto: Match your apron to the wallpaper.

Description source:
www.realestate.com.au

View the original image at Queensland State Archives:
Digital Image ID 9987

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Attractive interior for home ‘needn’t be dear’

An attractive interior need be no more costly than an ugly one, says Mrs. Merci Jeffery.

Mrs. Jeffery, who advises on interior decoration, specially curtains, for a city store, has made a study of the subject in England, America, and Australia.

She is particularly interested in helping young couples with limited money for furnishing. She gives the following pointers to interior decorating in a small home:-

Stick to a basic colour scheme throughout, introducing stronger, or varied accents in different rooms. This applies particularly to floor coverings and walls, which should be harmonious when seen through open doors. Interior woodwork should match walls.

Make long, narrow rooms more symmetrical by painting the narrow walls a darker shade than the others. A fire-place at the narrow end, flanked by bookshelves, also has a broadening effect.

Base the room’s color scheme on a favourite picture or

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Ideas For Decor

If you have a collection of small objets d’art, snuffboxes, etc., group them all on a table covered with a Victorian velvet cloth, falling to the floor and heavily fringed. (The velvet protects the objects from breaking or getting swept off the table.)

Combine different styles of furniture by upholstering them all in the same coloured fabric. Get interest in this scheme by using different textured fabrics of the one shade.

You can make furniture “vanish” in a small room by matching it to the carpet.

In a small house or flat it is often better to use the main colour throughout several rooms to give continuity and make the rooms seem larger – carpets, walls, and curtains in the same colour, or in varying shades of the same colour.

Important to remember: The window wall of a room is the darkest, but you can offset this

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

A Dining Nook In My Living Room

More than half the population of this country eats today without the benefit of a separate dining room.

I do, as the towering costs of building and the saving of every inch of house space have contributed to the disappearance of the dining room.

Recently I planned a corner dining alcove and am delighted with it. Would you like to share the idea with me?

And if you have a growing family to be considered, there is nothing so useful as a big spreading steady table always ready for use.

Now for the plan – I took the corner of the kitchen with the window space and made a window box for outside the window. This facing south, flowers bloom well in the summer-time.

On the floor of that corner I placed a sisal mat. Seating space under the window and one wall was

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Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Light And Colour

Decorating the Home Interior

(By P. R. Thoms).
Do you feel that there is something just not quite right with the interior decoration scheme in your lounge? Has the main bedroom become rather “bitty” – a bit of this and a bit of that – with no overall plan?

Nearly everyone can answer yes to these two questions, and formerly most people would have been thrown on their own resources if they sought to remedy the condition, but to-day there is in Brisbane an attractive young woman who has at her finger-tips ides, plans, chintzes, handblocked linens, carpets, etc., and is just itching to aid people – particularly countrywomen – to make their homes both liveable and lovely.

Gabrielle Livingston, a charming young Melbournian who came to Brisbane to start her own interior decoration business, has very definite ideas on the subject.

“People in Queensland are in their

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