I thought the best way to start off 2016 on the blog (a little late…….yes I know) would be to wrap up the Kafka lounge blog posts that I started last year in the lead up to our wedding – you can find them here.
In my last post I left with you with the finishing touches in preparation to use the lounge as a ‘love seat’ on the amazingly white sands of Jervis Bay.
So how did it all turn out you may ask? Excellent! See below!
Now it wouldn’t be fair If I didn’t show off my beautiful bride on the day…………..
Concept delivered perfectly!
It was amazing to see the concept that I had pictured for all those months leading up to the wedding be captured on film by our wonderfully talented photographer – Pete, from Peter Izzard Photography. I cannot recommend him enough! You can find out more about his services here – http://www.peterizzardphotography.com.au/
I’d like to take the opportunity to wish you all a very merry Christmas and happy new year!
Reflecting on 2015 we have slowly been progressing towards a significant goal, and if all falls into place towards the end of next year we should see a major change in how we run our business!
We will be taking a break from the online side of things for a few weeks, however will still be contactable via email & mobile (just may be a little slow in replying).
Take care, stay safe, and look forward to seeing you all in the new year.
According to wikipedia, that’s what Milton Bradley’s competitors referred to Twister as when it was first released in 1966. As enticing as that sounds, it’s not the reason I purchased this early Australian version of the game a few weekends ago.
Great Cover Art!
It was the cover art! How great is it? I suspected it may of dated from the 1960’s, and after a quick look inside my suspicions were confirmed – so purchased it I did.
Great Condition!
Once home, I pulled the board game apart, and was pleasantly surprised with it’s condition, which included the original instructions.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever played Twister before, so perhaps over the Christmas break and before I add it to the online store I might just to see what all the fuss is about!
This chair is interesting to me. Why? Well because of its construction. From the front it appears to be your typical steel/iron rod chair. However once you see the underside you quickly realise that the frame isn’t welded together. It is in fact bolted together using various clamps and fasteners. These hold the timber armrests (covered in plastic) / the back support and the seat all together (see photo below).
Early ‘Flat Pack’?
It really is quite amazing, and I would imagine of been more time consuming in the final assembly stage. I am curious why a company would go away from the traditional method of say, welding the frame together to the method described above?
Now I’m only speculating, but one reason I can think of is space saving for transport, just like Ikea’s flat pack furniture. You may of been able to fit say 20 of Meyer’s fully assembled chairs in the back of a delivery van, you break them down and that number could probably triple or quadruple quite easily. Another would be the ease of manufacture of each separate part off the production line.
So just who are ‘Meyer Furniture’? Searching on-line wasn’t a great deal of help, however trove brought up limited results. One was a news article from the 25th of September 1958 which read –
The Sydney firm of MeyerFurniture successfully tendered for the supply and delivery of steel framed cafeteria furniture for the cafeteria to be located on the fourth floor of the new administrative Building at Parkes. The furniture comprises 90 tables, and 360 chairs, and deliveries are to be completed by November 17. The accepted tender price is £2,593.
Another was a great image of their furniture stand at the 1960 Furniture Exhibition from the NSW State Library website – which I’m pretty sure shows the exact chair up against the rear wall.
Meyer Furniture Stand 1960
Unfortunately that’s all the info I can find right now, however as with most things the search never stops, it just gets put on ‘hold’ until some new information/pictures/furniture comes to light!
I’ve had a hard time over the last few weeks finding anything of great interest to share with you for my ‘Auction Watch’ blog posts. Tonight whilst trawling all the usual haunts again I was less than impressed (hey – maybe it’s me!) however a chair listed for sale on eBay caught my eye.
Similarities?Silky Oak
The similarity between it and my ‘Warwick library chair’ which I posted about here almost 3 years ago reminded me that I needed to post an update about the said chair in question.
Re-reading back through Georges history myself, there is every chance that the chair currently listed on eBay (search for Atomic Wooden Silky Oak Mid Century Chair – Buy It Now $75) is an early version/prototype that was discussed in the article of the eventual ‘Volkschair’.
The A-frame legs and its curves looks very, very similar along with those little arm rests sitting atop. The materials used are right for the period in question (early 1950’s) and the location of the chair (Strathpine QLD) is just 20km’s north of Brisbane, where George had his store and workshop. Could these factors just be a coincidence? Possibly, and without any hard documentation or makers marks it’s just speculation! I’ll leave you to make up your own mind.
Every once in a while you’ll come across a piece of furniture that completely blows your mind. For me, this happened today whilst browsing an Australian Mid Century group on Facebook.
Crazy Crazy good!
In architecture, you’d call the lines and design adorning the top of the front and rear bedheads – a butterfly roof, popularised in the post war period and so common to many mid century designed homes.
Beautiful lines!
Here they’ve applied the same design and principals to what otherwise is normally rectangular in shape (and boring!) and created something amazing and beautiful.
Design & practicality.
Apparently the new owners came into possession of the bed after purchasing a mid century modern home in Melbourne, and believe the manufacturer to be the Rosando Brothers. After looking through some other images of their work here, there definitely appears to be a strong resemblance in both style and design when compared to some of their other known work. I wish the new owners all the best with their amazing find!
I’ve owned this great mid century teak ‘rocket style’ lamp for a little while now, and it has always donned the cream, coolie lamp shade. Although reasonable in style, it just never felt quite right.
Ready for take off!
With the 3 legged tripod base, and the narrow, tapering central column the wide based coolie shade was a little top heavy. How much though I never realised until just recently when I came across this fantastic, original teal and gold drum style lamp shade.
Teal, or Cream?
With the teal shade firmly in my possession I was keen to try it out on the rocket lamp and see how it looked. I was super impressed not only with how well the teal contrasted against the teak, but also in it’s proportions. The drum style shade seems to suit the lamp perfectly, and allows the overall flow to continue on up, compared to the coolie style shade which I feel halted the flow – the shape – the design of the original lamp!
Now residing in our lounge room, with the teal shade firmly atop, the teak rocket style lamp will soon be joined by another teal coloured item. Possibly my favourite piece. Blog post and images to come!
Here is a chair. I purchased this chair a few years ago.
Great mid century CRO chair.
It was originally in a set of 5 with the matching table. Although at the time I was tight for space so just settled on this one. Regret? Kind of now yes, but why did I purchase just this one chair?
The secret lies underneath.
Original mid century paper tag/makers label. C.R.O Furniture of Sydney.
As soon as I flipped the chair and saw the original cardboard makers tag still stapled underneath I knew I had to have it. Yes it was a shame to split it from the set (only 5 chairs originally so I didn’t feel too bad…..) but you can be sure I’ll come across these chairs and table in the future, an original tag though? Maybe a little more difficult. The 50 year old dust came at no extra cost also. Bargain!
Towards the end of last year, I posted about a mystery fler tub style lounge I had in storage. You can read that post here.
Often when searching for information on unknown (ish) pieces you come across it when you least expect it. This is what happened a few weeks ago when browsing through a small op shop in the southern highlands.
To my surprise I stumbled across the exact same chair from the 3 piece suite I have, in an original covering.
Original Covering – Fler Tub Lounge Chair
What’s even better is the original label was still attached, and perfectly legible, and although I didn’t have room to take it home, I made sure I got a picture of the label, which may shed some light on the design/name of the lounge chair/suite.
Fler label, from the tub style mystery lounge chair.
Now as you can see, we have ‘Airborne Europe Licence’ printed across the bottom of the maker’s label. This tells me that this particular style/design wasn’t an original Fler idea, more so they purchased the licence from an overseas company (based in Europe) to produce/sell this style of lounge chair/suite in Australia.
Now to search for more information on ‘Airborne’. A quick google search for ‘Mid Century Airborne Furniture’ brought up a few results, and not surprisingly a lot of very similar styled/design lounge suites and chairs, encompassing big bold curves with plenty of fibreglass.
Airborne appears to be a French furniture company that started during the 1950’s, however the fibreglass element looks to of been introduced during the late 1960’s – early 1970’s. A look on 1stdibs is worthwhile for interests sake, see here.
Unfortunately thus far I haven’t been able to identify the exact style of suite (still!) or possibly a designer, however as I mentioned above, when I’m least expecting it, I’m sure the next piece of the puzzle will present itself!
