Edwardian and Art Deco Gates - the gap in heritage style gates

So many homes that are being renovated in metropolitan areas in Australia are from the Edwardian and Art Deco periods. Many of these homes have been lost to developers who saw the simplicity of the design from this period as being 'boring' and not worth renovating.  Consequently the gates and fences available on the market tend to cater for the Victorian architectural periods as they were more decorative.  In an effort to fill this gap we 'finally' got around to making a prototype of a garden gate which would fit this period. It's simple lines, curved top and symetrical scrollwork all work with the Art Deco and Edwardian styles. We've used a bit of artistic licence with the addition of the wrought iron baskets, but I think it works. We're also going to make a larger entrance gate version but I couldnt wait to post a photo of this unpainted gate:

 

It lends itself to being made into a taller gate as well, so many possibilities! It also reminds me of some of the Edna Walling gates I've seen in books and in her early blueprints. I'm tempted to call it the 'Agatha' as I was inspired whilst watching a murder mystery on the ABC one night.

I'd love to hear your comments.

NEW - heritage style country gate design ... the Estate Gate & Chicken Coop Gate

We're pleased to announce the latest design in our gate range, the 'Estate' gate. We've had a number of customers with wider entrance ways who have liked the simplicity of the Railway gate, but also loved the older flat bar heritage style of the Eleanor - which unfortunately is not as stable in longer lengths. The double gates below have been sandblasted so that they will rust up evenly, as the customer wanted a set of old looking gates.

We've created a country gate with a stronger RHS frame, flat horizontal bars and a softly curved handle at either end. The diagonal supports are decorated with a ring in the centre. In future Eleanor gates over 12' or 3.6m will also be made with an RHS frame to give the gate more support and rigidity. Pricing of the new Estate gate will be the same as the Eleanor.

A few days ago I mentioned a chicken coop gate that we were making. Our customer wanted something a little 'different' and whimsical in design. Here's a photo of the gate ready to go to it's new home:

These are going to be very lucky chickens!

Wrought iron door panel and new gate topper ...

Our latest custom design ... a custom made wrought iron door panel was required by a client who is nearing completion of her new home. This design would also lend itself quite nicely to a decorative wall panel. We can't wait to see the photos of the completed door in situ.

One of our distributors sent us a samples of a couple of new wrought iron gate toppers. I got to doing some photography today so here's a section of one of them, as well as a section of another ornate wrought iron panel that we've used in some of our courtyard gates.  Both toppers that were sent to us are lovely and my initial reaction to the more ornate gate topper was that it would look lovely over a bed head.  More detailed info about these two items are in our wrought iron flyer. Please contact us via our website if you'd like more information.

Garden Arches & Rose Arbours ... whimsical wrought iron gates

We've been intending to come up with an easily transportable design for nearly a year but spare workshop time had been limited as demand for our gates grew. We recently had a customer order a garden arch so it gave us the opportunity to create what will be a standard design in our range. This rose arbour comes apart ito two halves but like all our products, is still very sturdy when bolted together.  

We're finding that over the last few months the workshop has been putting through more bespoke or custom designed pieces. I'll showcase these as we make them. But two pieces we made a few months ago for the Newman's Nursery at Tea Tree Gully in Adelaide have really taken some people's breath away. Situated by their Topiary Cafe the short wrought iron ballustrade, and large and small sets of wrought iron gates have got customers asking who made them! We're currently making up a small single version for a chicken run - lucky chooks!

There's another two new gates designs coming soon.

2009 Gate designs update

It's been while since we've posted anything to this blog, however this isn't really a reason for concern as the reason has been that we've been run off our feet with work. The last 12 months has seen a fantastic growth in demand for our heritage style gates, and the introduction of wrought iron has widened the scope immensely. We're continually adding more steel gate designs to the range in both country styles and wrought iron garden gate designs.

The Eleanor (above), one of our first larger wrought iron gates introduced a year ago, has been extremely popular both in large and small versions, as has the more provincial style garden gate, the 'Florence' which was also introduced last year.

By the middle of the year we found that it was necessary to employ the services of another welder to assist Andrew in the workshop, freeing him up to do more designing and quoting of custom orders and also give him time to recover from a hip replacement. Graham Jonathan has been a welcome addition to our Farmweld team.

The warmer weather has brought out the gardeners all around Australia, over the last couple of months and again the workshop is busier than ever. Some designs which started out as custom gate designs for particular customers are being added to our standard gate range. A couple of the designs are shown here. We are getting more customers asking about unique custom designs for both gates and other items incorporating wrought iron. These include matching garden ornaments such as arches and trellises, which are the next items to be added to the website.

The website has been much neglected due to our overwhelming workload, but this is slowly to be rectified. If you like what you see here please tell your friends about us and leave a comment.