To The Birds

(Ron Onions' Pigeon Loft, Albany)

I've always loved allotments and, in particular, the little sheds that are built on them. These are artful assemblages of as-found building components; old doors, windows and timber panels lashed together to make hybridised, miniature houses.


(Joe Bridges's Racing Loft, Timsbury, UK)

The same strain of home made ad-hocism exists in the world of the pigeon loft only with the added interest of the obsessive pigeon fancier thrown in. The photographs accompanying this post are taken from here - a South Western Australian pigeon fancier's (who knew?) website, cataloguing lofts from around the world.


(Graham Britton's Garden Loft, Newborough, UK.)

They are a lovely collection, a group of miniature buildings ranging from the almost Miesian simplicity of the one at the top of this post (owned by the fabulously named Ron Onions) through Mittel European style chalets to the (slightly decrepit) LA poolhouse style loft below.


(Fred Thompson's Poolside Loft, Western Aust.)

There is a strong sense that the lofts are far more expansive and luxurious than required. They are clearly an expression of the owners obsessive love of racing pigeons and the dedication it takes to train them. In the world of the pigeon fancier the birds are the 'talent' and these lofts are their Bel Air mansions. They're a far cry from the terrace rooftop lofts of the Northern England stereotype anyway, and the term loft is a bit of a misnomer. These are houses in their own right.


(Advanced Pigeon Loft diagram, Via)

The site also contains detail of each fancier's dietary and training regime should you be interested. Each one has a personal profile offering an insight into a remarkable world of obsessive feeding patterns and slightly obscene sounding terminology ("widowhood cocks"). Like most hobbies it is a sort of parallel universe, one where humans build houses for birds to live in that are quite probably a lot nicer than their own.

(Joe Baker's Racing Loft, Hereford, UK)

Old world luxury home design, Clive Christian

Clive Christian is probably more well known for being the company that sells the world's most expensive bottle of perfume.

They also have a reputation for high end cabinetry based home interiors.

Most of their designs are based off of old world designs but done with a modern cabinetry layout scheme.

Something of note with most of their designs is that they incorporate three elements. Crystal chandeliers, lots of wood molding and mirrors. When you break that down these are relatively inexpensive materials available at any big box home improvement store.

Crown molding either stained or painted to match the walls is a fairly easy project even a beginner could tackle. Basic cabinets could benefit from added crown or base moldings stained to match. Front molding and finials are also readily available and could be added to the front of cabinet bases or open shelving. Crystal chandeliers can frequently be found at garage sales, flea markets and house fixture reuse stores. Walls can benefit from frames made of molding that are mounted to the wall. When doing so on a painted wall, painting the frames to match makes them look built in. The bedroom pictured could be mimicked using a love seat and two wardrobes. A used hotel furniture warehouse would be an idea source for a pair of matching wardrobes or armoires. The heavy use of mirrors is another features that is relatively easy to recreate. Standard unframed mirrors from a big box home improvement store could be installed on the wall and framed out with the finish moldings to blend into the wall.

The free antique piano

Dr. Dreadful asked me if we wanted a free piano. One of his co-workers found it left behind by a former tenant in one of her properties. If we removed it we could have it.

I was told that it had white paint on it, had lots of carving making it look old and it was made in the 1960's. It sounded cool so I agreed sight unseen.

After much fuss and aching backs Dr. Dreadful and friends showed up with the piano at our house. It was indeed very cool.


Whomever painted this with a thick layer of interior wall primer does need a serious beating. Upon further inspection the piano didn't look to be constructed in the 1960's. After some serious googling I found that it is actually an antique. Based on the serial number it is around a year 1909-1912 Smith & Barnes. A similar one fully restored sold for around $9700. It does need a small bit of work, one of the hammers was broken but otherwise is one of the most amazing sounding pianos.

I did discover that the finish underneath the primer is recoverable. By using a piece of extra fine sandpaper I was able to get down to pure finish without damage. So this will be my January and February project, hand sanding the entire piano.
My sanity in March remains to be seen.

The images do not do justice to the detailed carving.