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.

Wrought Iron Garden Gates - new release

Farmweld have added a new wrought iron garden gate to their existing range of heritage style country gates. This new gate design is the first in a series of wrought iron garden gates. The 'Florence' is a heritage style gate reminiscent of the turn of the century, heritage wrought iron gates and a design that even the famous garden designer Edna Walling would have loved. The frame of this wrought iron gate is made of flat steel with hand turned scroll work and solid steel vertical bars. The wrought iron 'C' scrolls have decorative hammered ends giving this gate a more formal look than Farmweld's other heritage style country gates.

Made entirely of untreated steel, the gate can be supplied as is and allowed to weather and rust adding to its charm. Like the other heritage style country gates from Farmweld, this wrought iron garden gate can be powder coated in any of the colours from the Interpon powder coating colour chart.

This garden gate would look beautiful displayed as a wall ornament, or more practically as a pleasing entrance or feature in your garden. This wrought iron gate would look stunning in a cottage garden or Edna Walling inspired garden.

Hinge sockets come standard and latches and hinge pins can be supplied. The pictured gate is 1250mm x 900mm, but can be made to any size as a garden gate or full sized wrought iron entrance gate.

For a short time only Farmweld is offering the pictured 900mm garden gate for only

$500 with FREE DELIVERY and ALL HARDWARE SUPPLIED.

A gate of this size will normally retail for $540 plus delivery and hardware so considerable savings are to be had.

ORDER NOW before the Christmas rush begins to avoid disappointment.

Farmweld heritage style country gates and wrought iron gates are available direct from the manufacturer and are delivered all around Australia via courier, at a reasonable rate. All gates are custom made to any size and Farmweld offer a gate design service.

Opening Statements!

Garden Gates ...

As our business grows and we talk to more customers, we've noticed that there's not only a demand for our entrance and paddock gates, but also garden or personal access gates. In times past many a farmer showed his appreciation to his wife by making her a lovingly made garden gate to display in her own domain. When times were tough these gardens were sometimes the main solace and distraction for these ladies and their families, being the only green patch on the whole property. Although these gates were usually simple it was not uncommon for the husbands to decorate the gates with beautiful scrollwork, making them quite a feature in these more often than not, cottage gardens. Although we've been making smaller versions of our bigger gates, we're now in possession of a scroll bender which has opened up the scope of what we can offer our clients. Here's an example of the top of a gate which we designed for one customer ... need I say that the resident welder loves his new toy!

Opening Statements!

As a relatively new small family business I thought it might be a good idea to add a blog our existing website. We started 'Farmweld' about 18 months ago and originally decided that our objectives would be to make quality products primarily for small property owners. Their needs are different to bigger farmers and their frustrations, as well as our own, with poorly made equipment made it obvious that there would be a demand for well made stock equipment - especially for handling small herds of sheep, alpacas or cattle as well as gaps in the equine aka horse industry for horse equipment like jump wings, float yard panels and well made and safe roundyards.
Having a bit of an artistic streak I found that it would also be nice to make something different to the norm. Farm gates seemed to only come in mesh or less commonly bar type gates and in many cases the quality was poor. These days gates only come in standard sizes, but lets face it how many old properties have 'standard' size gate openings? In the old days, most 'cocky's' would do their own fencing and gateways were made to accommodate the landscape and needs of the property owner. Many would also make their own gates, expecially the lovely garden gates with timber, or odd bits of wrought iron work or scroll work. Many people going through a sea change or tree change and needing to upgrade gates and fencing have found that replacing an odd sized gate is alot harder than originally thought and in some cases a good excuse for some retailers to charge ridiculous amounts to custom make a gate.

I guess that's where we saw that there was a need, a demand as such. Farm gates needn't be boring and more attractive gates needn't be unfunctional. That's where our range stemed from ... the desire to make something functional, strong and yet attractive. A farm gate that would keep in livestock and also be welcoming ... the birth of Farmweld's Heritage Style Country Gates.