Injecting the vintage into our build

Hello!

It’s an exciting milestone in our house build – we’re at lockup! That’s right, that time in the build which most people consider the ‘hump’, not least of all because it’s generally the biggest payment stage, which feels pretty humpy financially, but it’s when all the external doors and windows are in and it feels like a real house.

The plasterers have been working hard and we’ve complicated their task a little because they have to work around one of the features we included to inject a little vintage vibe, pine lining boards.

There’s a bit of a throwback to pine lining boards lately thanks to the recent ‘shiplap’ trend popularised by a few American house restoration TV programs, but of course the use of timber boards to line ceilings and walls in Australian housing goes back to the original European-style houses in Australia like the slab hut.

The invention of plasterboard and asbestos- and fibro-cement sheet post WWII led to lots of beautiful timber boards being removed and new construction opting for the cheaper manufactured alternatives. Today, timber lining boards tend only to be used as feature points in design for a point of difference in architectural focal points.

I’m sure you could have predicted just a ‘focal point’ of timber lining was never going to be enough for me. Nope.

So I pushed the friendship a little with our builder and made the call: timber lining on the ceiling throughout the entrance, main living area and hall. Also I opted for a few full walls, being a large wall in the central living area, two walls in the lounge and one in the master bedroom. I chose to have them installed horizontally in the fashion of early Australian architecture.

The trickiest bit, where I may have pushed the envelope little, is the ceiling of the al fresco area, because it’s vaulted and will need a bit of time to perfect the angles.

It’s going to look superb and I can’t wait to see it painted up.

If funds had allowed, I would have gone further. I perhaps would have liked to have included the hall walls and all the ceilings, but we had the draw the purse strings somewhere and I think the choices we made for where to put the timber lining will definite add a strong vintage feel without blowing the budget and avoids the feeling of the timber just being a ‘token’ addition.

I also chose to use the side of the board which many people think of as the reverse, which gives a feeling of a wider board and reveals the curved bead line which, for me, really gives it a more period feel. Combined with a modest cornice choice, nearly every room will have a vintage hit which will be un-missable.

Next week the next stage of fitout begins, with architraves, skirting boards and tiles being delivered for installation. The slow reveal continues!