Category: Queensland State Archives’ Photostream About Fortitude Valley

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Planned Kitchen – More Social Life

Housewives spend too much time in the kitchen and should try to get back into the social life of the home.

That is the theory of designers who have planned the Homes and Garden section of the Festival of Britain.

Most of the planned kitchens displayed are arranged so they are part of a unit which also contains the breakfast-dining-room.

Glass folding walls, easily moveable screens or cupboard units with open shelf tops divide the kitchen from the eating quarters.

While she cooks or does the chores the housewife can talk to other members of the family without having them underfoot.

One important interior-decorating trend shown by the dozens of room displays in the Homes and gardens exhibit is that patterned wallpaper is back in fashion.

It is used everywhere – even kitchens have one wall papered.

Built-in cupboards and doors in streamlined 20th century bedrooms are

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Modern Trend In Kitchen Furnishing

Brown and Jolly Ltd. highlight the modern trend in this year’s display of furniture and furnishings.

Of special interest is the kitchen setting, the chairs which are in chrome covered in plastic coated fabric of white trimmed with black. The chrome table has an oval top of heat resistant black Formica. A large unit type cabinet in white with black table top completes this smart setting.

Curtains are of white organdie relieved with black trimmings.

The twin-robe bedroom suite has panels of highly figured veneered burr myrtle, finished natural blonde shade. The attractive vanity table styles with straight top is fitted with reflex mirror and ample drawer space.

A novel feature is embodied in the three piece lounge suite.

Shelves that can be used as bookshelves or for the display of pottery have been provided on the settee and chairs and should prove both useful and

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1950’s

The mid-century modern era of the 1950’s saw a neutral colour palette on the walls, with pops of bright colour such as lime green, soft yellows and blues on the cabinetry, decor and featured wallpapered walls. Homes were light and airy, with large windows and sliding doors to open up smaller living spaces. Furniture was geometric in shape, think the Eames chair to reference this era of design.

Description source:
Start Right Homes

View the original image at Queensland State Archives:
Digital Image ID 16324

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Simple Interior Treatments

Although neither cold nor stark, modern home interiors stress an atmosphere of comfort by the simplicity of the furnishings.

Rather than relying on mantel shelves loaded with ornaments and draperies that catch dust, modern interiors can be given an uncluttered serenity with well-designed furnishings that make for easier housekeeping and provide a restful atmosphere.

The modern treatment is also achieved with plain materials, almost blank walls and a good measure of relatively open space. These days costs are being cut by combining living and dining rooms into one simply furnished area, which treatment, in turn, serves to emphasise the area’s spaciousness.

Where the room opens on to a verandah or terrace through glass doors, heavy draperies are no longer needed. Walls that frame a picture of an outside garden eliminate the need for numerous wall pictures.

To continue reading visit:
The West Australian, 19 April 1950

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History of Butterfly Chair

Known by many aliases, including the sling chair and the Nap chair, the butterfly chair has been quite popular since it was created and perceived as an easy-going lounger. Historically, the butterfly chairs have origin since the 19th century and were used as military furniture.

They were first created in 1938 (just after World War II), through an Argentinian architectural firm called Grupo Austral, and were an updated design of the Paragon Chair. In the 1870s, this chair was very popular in the US as campaign furniture and was specifically made for travel.

The butterfly chair was the first piece of furniture to be made with tubular steel, but its wooden counterparts were manufactured since the 1850s. These folding ‘campaign’ wooden sling chairs were created for the British military by an English engineer named Joseph Fenby.

The butterfly chairs available in the modern era

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Danish sofa

Long and low furniture designs come hand-in-hand with Fifties modernism. This type of furniture perfectly complements the lenience towards a more open-plan style of living, creating comfort in 1950’s homes.

Description source:
Budget Direct

View the original image at Queensland State Archives:
Digital Image ID 16351

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The Living Room Is The Most Important

An important point to remember in planning your own home is that the living room, as its name should imply, is, along with the kitchen, the most important room in your house.

Careful planning not only of the room itself, but its eventual furnishing and decoration, will pay dividend of long years of happy contented home life. Aspect, shape and size are three of the main considerations.

Best aspect
North is the best aspect and south the worst.

Remember, too, that the lounge is the room which is most logically used to connect the house to the garden, either direct through French doors or large windows, or by a verandah and pergola. An oblong is preferable to a square shape and size must be decided on family requirements.

Lighting in this room must be, for obvious reasons, the best in the house. General lighting

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The living-dining room

By Joan Martin

Those who grew up in the middle-class home of 30 or 40 years ago will remember the importance that was placed on the dining-room.

Everyone who was anybody had a dining-room, and the notion of dining elsewhere would have been very strange indeed.

…
The dining-room was the setting for the family social circle, and it was there that to-day’s middle-ageds played card games and did homework or home dressmaking.

But in those days there were few middle-class homes that didn’t have an elder daughter at home or domestic help of some sort, and life moved at a more leisurely and gracious pace.

To-day the cost of living is astronomical, elder daughters have jobs, and help, even when available, is beyond the means of the average family.

Of sheer necessity the living-dining-room was born, and money is now diverted from space into labor-saving equipment.

…
The best dining area

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1950s – Kitchens Of The Future

Post-WW2 kitchens welcomed vibrant dramatic colours, shapes and form. The years after the war brought forth a decade which pushed the boundaries of interior design like never before. This was the era that ushered in the Kitchens of the Future!

Due to the advances in travel quickly brought forward from the war, globalisation was beginning, introducing European design motifs into every home. Midcentury Modern designers and architects were focusing on modern materials to produce their products, which meant kitchen interior design focused on affordability and simplicity.

The kitchens of the 1950’s now incorporated modern lines, curved counter tops and odd angles made from vinyl or new plastics. They also incorporated timber, lacquered paints and enamel finishes. Wallpaper was a cheap way for people to create colour in their kitchens; flora and fauna, vibrant repeating prints were huge, were sometimes used to cover

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Panelling In Wood For Decor

If you are planning a new home, or are remodelling an old one, consider an old-fashioned idea that is as good to-day – wood panelling – one of the easiest ways to gain effect and conceal a fault in your home.

Wood belongs just as happily with conventional or modern decor. Some of the loveliest old homes have dining rooms and libraries with walls of gleaming wood panels, and some of the most attractive new homes use both vertical and horizontal timber panelling to give texture interest to rooms.

Wood is warm and mellow and takes kindly to both soft and bright colours. Use panelling to make a visual partition (that doesn’t reach the ceiling) of a too-long and too-high room. It will break it up well and give you a new angle wall against which to place furniture.

Try panelling a wall with

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