Herre’s a sitting room with the ever-popular Venetian blinds, in red; barkcloth curtains; Fler or Snelling style chairs, sofa and desk; Feltex carpet, and what might be an Albert Namatjira watercolour print on the wall.

A bedroom, with the very popular skirted bedspread; teak bed head; more of that deep green Feltex; and another Fler or Snelling type chair.

What’s that on the floor? Why, it’s more dark green Feltex! That stuff was everywhere. Some more of those chairs too, and a matching coffee table on what looks like a chenille rug. Seems it was fairly popular to have a mix of modern and antique style furniture and homewares, there are lots of pictures in my vintage home magazines of rooms like this. Is that a Renoir print hanging on the wall?

Tiki time! Cane furniture with a bamboo or palm frond print upholstery,  yellow Venetians and ceiling with dark turquoise walls. I like the rug, and I love the ‘crazy paving’ fireplace.

A March 1955 special feature on Canberra. Canberra was a relatively new city, and after WWII, modern architecture sprang up everywhere alongside the original Californian bungalows and (almost Arts and Crafts) cottages. There are many excellent examples, and the best place to read about them is the Canberra House blog. One of these excellent houses is actually up for sale: an Alex Jelinek house at 10 Gawler St, Deakin. It comes with its custom made Krimper furniture! Price is ‘by negotiation’. Canberra prices are pretty outrageous even for ordinary houses, but if I was the kind of person who had a lot of money to spend on a house, I’d be up for this one. Looking at the pictures, I wonder if those are the original bathrooms. The fittings look kind of 1978 and out-of-place.

Anyway, the Home Beautiful feature has sections on public architecture, such as at ANU; private homes, including floor plans and interiors; and local craftspeople making pottery and furniture. I’ve put it all into a PDF for download, it’s 30MB: Home Beautiful Goes to Canberra – March 1955.

There’s no date given, but since it’s all about updating your tired old dark wood Art Deco and Victorian furniture with which you have Made Do with during the war, and there’s no modernist furniture in the pictures, I’ll take a guess at 1947-49. I found it in the National Library along with a few other interesting and similar promotional publications. Since colour photocopies cost something ridiculous like $2 a page, and taking a scanner to the library is fraught with difficulty, I used my iPhone to take photos of the pages. I’ve edited it together into a PDF which you can download: The Colorful Home (PDF 38MB).

There are plenty of before-and-after illustrations for all rooms of the house, as well as your exterior and garden. Here are the afters!

A living room: all the dark wood has been painted in "Biscuit", and the furniture modernised by cutting down the legs and removing frames.

Mission brown Victorian furniture and fittings painted in new "Llama Grey"(!) gloss, and the linoleum painted bright royal blue.

The bare concrete floor has been painted "Grotto Green" as has the window frame and door; the furniture is red-trimmed now; and the walls are an ever-popular bright cream.

A nursery scheme designed for a girl, with "Pale Orchid" walls and "Cambridge Blue" enamel paint on all the furnishings. Venetian blinds were advertised as healthful, because you could control "dangerous drafts" so the baby wouldn't catch a chill.

A very pretty little kitchen in a classic 40s colour scheme! Yet more cream paint, with "Oriental Red" trim, and "Burnt Sand" painted lino. The curtains are "snowy white muslin with red coin spots". I want a shiny red sifter like that!

The large kitchen, with walls in "Buttercream", furniture in "Lettuce Green", and floor in "Forest Green". Check out the Cornish ware crockery, and aluminium canister set.

There's that cream paint again! even on the bathtub exterior. The stool is "Marigold", the floor a grey-blue, and the shower curtains and mat have a seagull motif with black trim!

The "oppressive stained furniture becomes delightfully modern" when painted in glossy cream! The walls are "Distant Blue" (a soft turquoise).

Home sweet home - with "Mecca Green" and "Deep Cream".

I used to live in a little 1927 cottage in Barton that hadn’t been renovated. It still had the old Canberra wood-fired stove in the kitchen, and a bathroom that was pink-tastic. The people who bought the house from our landlord extended the house and I’m not sure that piece of the past is there anymore. (And I’m not sure I really appreciated the design of that cottage while I lived there, actually. Hindsight! No bench space in the kitchen was frustrating, however.)

If you look on real estate listings sites you can usually get pictures of the insides of these places when they come up for sale or rent.  The weirdest renovations, to me, are not those that modernise the interior, but those that do a Federation style. Does not compute!