Western Adventures Day 11 & 12!

Day 11 & 12 of The Western Adventures Of The Meandering Meares’. Day 11 was pretty quiet, consisting of a few hours’ drive to Charters Towers, followed by an afternoon kindy-kip for the designated driver, GB, while I curled up with my kindle for a quiet read. When we holiday we try to balance up seeing as much as we can with having a break/rest, hence a few quiet arvos in the schedule. 😉

Day 12 was a fun one. Imagine my delight when we called into the local tourist info centre (usually one of our first stops when we hit town) to see brochures telling me that there were three historic homes open to the public that day! WOO! HOO! We spent the morning admiring high ceilings, original timber floorboards, GORGEOUS aqua window glass & fabulous vintage treasures & decorating. Alrighty, then … brace yourself for some heritage building spam. 🤣

Our first stop was once a church manse & this gorgeous chapel was next door. It’s not often these days you find bell towers with their bell intact. No pics of the manse as the rooms were a bit too dark & crowded with other visitors to get good pics.


House two was lighter & airier, so got a couple of snaps. I fell in love with the aqua windows! 🥰😍

This is the first time I’ve seen aqua windows, I have to confess. I now have window-envy! TEE! HEE! HEE!

House number three was a showstopper! I could definitely see myself moving in here. In fact … some of the rooms were decorated very similarly to our home … clearly it’s been decorated by someone with exquisite taste! 🤣 Actually, I had a nice chat with the lady responsible for the decorating choices & she said when she & her hubby bought the house, it was the first time it had been sold since the 1920’s … & she reckoned nothing had been updated or renovated in between sales! 🤣 Eight years of hard work, finance-juggling, wrangling tradies, sourcing vintage goodies & cleaning, cleaning, cleaning led to the state we were able to enjoy.

I was going to run off with the half-tester valance, as I’ve been hunting for one for about five years now for the brass bed in my sewing room. GB refused to cause a diversion for me! Selfish! Tee! Hee! Hee!

Each of the vintage brass beds was adorned in a beautiful quilt, as well as several luscious crazy-patch/embroidered quilts being displayed. 

The dining/lounge room was divided by the fabulous archway. If you click on the pic & enlarge it, you’ll see the ’crackle’ finish to the paint that looks like a special paint effect. In fact, it’s caused by paint layers & time. Apparently the timber tongue-&-groove walls were given a clear varnish finish when the house was built, then at a later time, this was painted over. Through decades of the timber expanding & contracting with different temperatures & air moisture levels, the outer paint developed its crackle look & the owners decided to leave it.


Bit harder to get a good pic of the main bedroom due to the door blocking the view into the room as it opened inwards. Still pretty special … & a similar colour to our guest room. 😜

After wiping the envious drool off our chins, it was time to explore the town … next instalment pending. 😜 Til next time …

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!

KRIS