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Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House
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Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House
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    From the blog

    Marching through the paint layers of history—revealing the hidden secrets of Provisional Parliament House (part 3)

    3 minute read

    Mon 11 Feb 2013 by
    Kate Armstrong
    • building
    • collection

    Do you enjoy messing about with sample pots of paint and mixing in just a touch more white or black to get the shade just so? If you answered a resounding yes then the Members’ Dining Room was your idea of heaven during January. Following the research and planning and the laborious paint scraping to reveal the historic decorative paint finish, the final steps of the project have occurred – washing down, patching, colour matching and infill painting.

    First the surface of the revealed paint finish was carefully wiped down with water to remove dust and any other accretions and the cracks and holes filled. Just like the washing down with sugar soap and patching that is so critical to a successful paint job at home. Next came colour matching and mixing. Much time was spent muttering over fans of paint colours as the extant colours were painstakingly matched for the infill painting. Infill painting refers to the process of painting to cover any cracks or patches or infill areas that haven’t been able to be revealed. In this situation these were the plaster friezes that, apart from a small sample area, could not be effectively stripped of the top layers of paint. Close attention is paid to using the same colours and techniques as the original decorators.

    Once the painting was complete we all stood back and the decorative paint finish was revealed in all its glory. In one room the frieze is in soothing shades of mint, apricot, cream and silver with tan and green ragged walls. In another room a surprisingly jazzy red, gold, copper, mint, apricot and cream frieze is set amongst mint and tan ragged walls. In doing these reveals we have achieved one of our objectives – to be able to visualise how the Members’ Dining Room would have looked when the space was decorated throughout with this colour scheme.

    Part 1: Marching through the paint layers of history—revealing the hidden secrets of Provisional Parliament House 

    Part 2: Marching through the paint layers of history—revealing the hidden secrets of Provisional Parliament House 

    3 minute read

    Mon 11 Feb 2013 by
    Kate Armstrong
    • building
    • collection
    Tamara carefully washes down the revealed paint scheme in readiness for patching. Museum of Australian Democracy collection

    Tamara carefully washes down the revealed paint scheme in readiness for patching. Museum of Australian Democracy collection

    • 2 patching 51185986e28ea
    • 3 patching and blank frieze 511859d3e8219
    • 4 frieze scraping issue 51185a16c0f45
    • 5 painting equipment 51185a593c07d
    • 6 infill painting the frieze m 51185aa3ebe4a
    • 7 infill painting the frieze m 51185b5dbe051
    • 8 infill painting the ragged f 51185b80a4a74
    • 9 finished reveal mdr3 51185ba27d828
    • 10 close up finished reveal md 51185bbbdf244
    • 11 finished reveal mdr2 51185bd54ccf7
    • 12 close up finished reveal md 51185bf027394

    Kate Armstrong works in content development, interpretation and collection management at the Museum of Australian Democracy.

    Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House

    18 King George Terrace, Parkes, ACT 2600, Australia

    PO Box 3934
    Manuka ACT 2603

    9am to 5pm daily 
    Closed Christmas Day

    ABN: 30 620 774 963

    Telephone: 02 6270 8222

    Enquiries:
    info@moadoph.gov.au

    Please note: video surveillance is used 24 hours a day around and throughout the building and may be used for research purposes

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