#painters in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs

[upscalepainting123]

Revitalize your living spaces with the expert touch of Upscale Painting, your premier choice for painters in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. Our dedicated team brings a blend of skill and creativity to transform your home into a masterpiece. At Upscale Painting, we understand the unique charm and architecture of the Eastern Suburbs, and our painters are equipped to enhance your interiors with precision and flair. From classic color palettes to trendy modern designs, we cater to diverse tastes, ensuring a personalized and aesthetically pleasing result. With a commitment to quality and customer satisfaction, Upscale Painting stands out as the preferred choice for residential painting projects in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. Elevate your home's appeal with Upscale Painting – where expertise meets artistry. Explore our services today and discover the difference a professional touch can make in the heart of Sydney's Eastern Suburbs.

[excellentpaintings]

How Can Professional Painters in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs Benefit You?

Introduction:

Looking to transform your space into something truly remarkable? Professional painters in Sydney's eastern suburbs can make all the difference. At Excellent Painting, we pride ourselves on delivering exceptional painting services tailored to your needs. Let's explore how our team of expert painters can benefit you.

Quality Workmanship:

When you hire professional painters in Sydney's eastern suburbs, you can expect top-notch workmanship. Our team at Excellent Painting is trained and experienced in delivering high-quality painting services that exceed your expectations. From surface preparation to the final coat of paint, we ensure precision and attention to detail in every project.

Time and Cost Savings:

Attempting a DIY painting project can often result in wasted time and money. With professional painters, you can save both. Our efficient processes and use of high-quality materials ensure that your project is completed on time and within budget. Plus, you won't have to worry about costly mistakes or touch-ups down the line.

Personalised Service:

At Excellent Painting, we understand that every project is unique. That's why we offer personalised service to meet your specific needs and preferences. Whether you're looking to refresh a single room or overhaul your entire property, our team works closely with you to bring your vision to life.

Professional Advice:

Not sure which colours or finishes will best suit your space? Our team of professional painters in Sydney's eastern suburbs is here to help. We provide expert advice on color selection, paint types, and finishes to ensure that your project achieves the desired aesthetic and longevity.

Enhanced Property Value:

A fresh coat of paint can do wonders for your property's curb appeal and resale value. By investing in professional painting services, you can enhance the overall look and feel of your home or business, making it more attractive to potential buyers or tenants.

Conclusion:

When it comes to painting projects, don't settle for anything less than the best. With professional painters in Sydney's eastern suburbs, you can enjoy quality workmanship, personalised service, and enhanced property value. Choose Excellent Painting for all your painting needs and experience the difference firsthand.

[jackpaint321]

Industrial Painters Sydney For Hire

All of our industrial painters in Sydney have received training from us on how to do tasks while considering all relevant safety considerations. We ensure that every aspect of our work properly complies with Sydney's safety laws. For hiring us, contact us right away or visit us.

[random-brushstrokes]

Thea Proctor (Australian, 1879-1966)

Alethea Mary Proctor's life as an artist encompassed more than half of the twentieth century. Born in Armidale in 1879 to parents who were soon to divorce, she weathered a disrupted childhood and a choppy education before beginning art study under Julian Ashton in Sydney when she was sixteen. At the Ashton school her fellow students included George Lambert, with whom she was to be closely associated in public and private over the next thirty years. In 1903, burning with a need to learn to draw, she travelled to London, where Lambert and his family were established. She became one of his favourite models, a regular in his household, and his pupil. Although she was desperately poor, her beauty and livery nature allowed her to meet many of the leading figures of the fin de siecle art world, and all her life she was to carry with her the modernist precepts and influences she absorbed from figures such as Clive Bell, spectacles such as the Ballets Russes and exhibitions such as the post-Impressionist show at the Grafton Galleries in 1910-11. Aside from a return to Australia in 1913-14, she was to remain in England throughout her twenties and thirties. Upon her return to Australia in 1921, which coincided with Lambert's, she immediately came to occupy a significant role in Sydney's volatile art world, and to disseminate her very strong ideas on modern art, interior decorating, fashion, costume, ballet and matters of taste in articles, lectures, formal classes, sketch clubs and at all conceivable social and artistic events. Strikingly beautiful, she never married, but supported herself into her eighties through art alone. She lived in a tiny rented flat in Double Bay, but until the early 1960s she was also able to maintain a studio in George Street, where she had lived before World War 2. In the inner city and the Eastern suburbs she became a familiar figure as immaculately dressed in brilliant purples, fuchsia and petunia shades she made her stately progress, parasol in gloved hand, seeking out the beautiful. (source)

The scenes of female intimacy in many of Proctor’s works have always been open to lesbian and queer readings. Women gaze intently at each other holding unfurled fans or proffering roses, symbols associated with female sexuality. Proctor moved in queer circles in Sydney in the 1920s and 1930s and was a valuable ally. JS MacDonald, the Art Gallery’s extremely conservative director from 1928 to 1936, wrote in 1934 of ‘the emergence of numbers of what the Americans call “pansies” … They rule the art world today, and, unless real painters speak up for themselves and right art, the women and their near-men abettors will ruin both.’ (source)

[mybeingthere]

Bertie Blackman is the daughter of renowned Australian artist Charles Blackman and grew up in the eastern Sydney suburbs of Bondi and Paddington. 

She rose to fame with her debut album in 2004, entitled Headway which came after years of prolific performances around Sydney”s Inner city venues, where she developed a dedicated following. International Grammar School. She began playing African percussion at the age of twelve and guitar at the age of fifteen.

Music was a way to establish herself as an artist in her own right. (Her mother, Genevieve de Couvreur, is also a painter.) 

Her first publicly accessible visual art was in the form of a book of illustrations that appeared with her fourth album, Pope Innocent X.

“As soon as I did that I just kept drawing and drawing and drawing,” Blackman says. “Visual art for me before was more of a means to write songs, whereas now I’ve been doing more painting and drawing than music lately.

”Blackman’s work – ink on paper, mostly monochrome but with the odd flash of colour – shares filmmaker Tim Burton’s sense of the gothic tinged with innocence, but is also distinctly her own. (She counts composer and long-time Tim Burton collaborator Danny Elfman among her friends, and made a cameo vocal appearance at the Adelaide Festival when Elfman toured Songs From Tim Burton.”

https://harveygalleries.com.au/artist/bertie-blackman/#about

[eastern-beaches-painting]

Eastern Beaches Painting | Exterior House Painting

EXTERIOR HOUSE PAINTERS - RANDWICK AND SYDNEY

We provide exterior painting and repairs for residential and strata property Sydney wide. The longuevity of an exterior paint finish relies on ensuring the correct and most effective preparation and paint application methods are used. 

We use premium paints and are experienced in the application of protective coating systems including Dulux AcraTex, Emer Clad Facade and Durebild STE.

As a Dulux accredited painter we’ve been assessed by Dulux for the quality of our workmanship and selected based on our experience and high standard of our work processes.

We are specialists in residential exterior painting in Randwick, the Eastern Suburbs and Sydney wide.

[suburbeastern]

Bathroom Renovation Packages

Modern bathrooms add value to a home. However, a homeowner should avoid dodgy contractors who quote the lowest cost per hour for the job. They often compromise on the quality of work and materials.

Most renovation packages include a new bathtub or shower. They can offer standard tubs, soaking tubs, or air and whirlpool tubs. They also typically come with a sink and toilet. To know more about Bathroom Renovation Packages Sydney, visit the Eastern Suburbs Bathroom Renovations website or call 0415902838.

The cost of a bathroom renovation can vary based on the style, materials, and inclusions chosen. It is also important to allow for unforeseen costs, including wiring and plumbing alterations. Structural changes like moving fixtures or altering the floor plan can also significantly increase your budget.

To keep your costs down, opt for cosmetic changes instead of a full remodel. Repainting cabinets or re-glazing bathtubs can give your bathroom a new look for less. Also, shop sales and discounts for the best bargains.

If your budget is up to $15,000 you can make major changes to the bathroom with a new shower, bathtub and vanity. You can choose framed or frameless shower screens and install new large format tiles in the $30 per square metre range. You can also upgrade to modern back to wall toilets or a freestanding bathtub.

If you have more than $30,000 to spend you can have a premium bathroom that includes a top quality floor and wall hung vanity, in wall cisterns, luxurious freestanding tubs and mosaic or subway tiles ($60+ per sqm). You may also opt for a framed or semi-frameless shower screen and high quality plumbing fixtures and fittings.

Eastern Suburbs Bathroom Renovations is a renovation company that offers luxury bathroom and kitchen packages in Hills District, Hornsby, Ku-ring-gai Shire, North Shore, Parramatta and St George. They offer a full service that includes design, carpentry, plumbing, electrical, demolition, waterproofing and tiling.

Whether you’re looking for a modern bathroom or a traditional one, professional Bathroom Renovators in Coogee and the Hills District can help. They���ll design a beautiful bathroom that fits your budget and home style. They’ll also complete any plumbing or electrical work.

After the painters and tilers finish, you’ll finally see your new bathroom take shape. They’ll lay and paint the tiles and walls. Then, they’ll install your vanity, mirror, shower screen, and other fixtures. They’ll also apply waterproofing and sealant around sinks and bathtubs.

Based in Coogee, NSW, Eastern Suburbs Bathroom Renovations is a one-stop shop for kitchen and bathroom renovation packages. They’re committed to top-quality construction and provide product warranties. They also offer a free design consultation and project management service. This ensures that projects are completed on time and within your budget.

There are hundreds of different packages that can be purchased online. Some are low cost and some are designed to be high value. However, it is important to do your research and not to buy a package just because it has a high RRP. You may find that the items included in the package can be bought separately for similar pricing or you might be purchasing low quality products to achieve the discount.

Most bathroom renovation packages will include a new bathtub or shower. There are many options to choose from including standard tubs, soaking tubs, air or whirlpool tubs. They will also include a new sink, toilet, towel or paper holders and taps. These items will help create a cohesive look. Some will even include a new vanity.

George and his team were an absolute pleasure to work with. Their attention to detail and professionalism is second to none. The whole process was smooth, hassle-free and delivered a quality finish we are really happy with.

Eastern Suburbs Bathroom Renovations has been operating for over two decades and is one of Sydney’s leading licensed builders. Their experienced team consists of dedicated designers and project managers who will create your dream bathroom. They offer free no-obligation consultations and their renovation projects are completed on time and on budget. They also provide a detailed quote, HIA contract, and HBFC insurance. In addition, they offer an easy-to-use tracking software for their clients’ convenience. They service areas throughout the Northern, Eastern, and Western suburbs of Sydney. Moreover, they provide custom luxury and sustainable designs that are both eco-friendly and ethically-sourced materials. To know more about Bathroom Renovation Packages Sydney, visit the Eastern Suburbs Bathroom Renovations website or call 0415902838.

[macypouli]

Call painters from Master Painting Sydney on 1300 451 324 who use the best paints & methods to get your Painters Sydney Eastern Suburbs completed on schedule.

[pacificbuilders-blog2]

Professional Painting Service Ensures Quality Work on Your Property

A coat of paint could be exactly what your community home needs to stand out through. Don't forget to get a good painting done when your building starts looking like a bit bland. If you'd like to bring your property onto the market early, you'll have to show the best possible home. That involves doing a phenomenal job of colouring that makes your place look just like it was designed. There are several things to consider and many choices to make when painting the house. Maintenance and drywall House painting actually protects your house from environmental damage caused by water and heat. Clearly neglecting to peel outer paint will result in high cost of repairing the siding. The exterior paint quality also helps in assessing the worth of a home.

Recruiting a painting company or a skilled house painting company that is indeed certified and insured will save you a great deal of trouble for the residence, because the painters will fix it and the painters itself can cover the costs if in case any damage.

The professional painters in supported hundreds of homes with outdoor painting service and helped clients make the major choices about the colour of the exterior paint. House painters Sydney help the customers choose colour from the outside by educating them about various variations of colours, how colours represent designs, as well as how to render a house look unique and blend in its surrounds.

Exterior painting is the first impression of any house, so please ensure it's perfect. Sydney exterior painter commitment and subtlety ensures to complete the projects on time while ensuring the highest standard. To ensure a high degree of consistency, professionals routinely test the raw material for various criteria such as toughness and high resistance. They are skilled in repainting repairs and new houses.

Sydney exterior painters are experts in the field of painting roofs and surfaces outside. They are going to be there to guide you along with this process, every step of the way. Next, they will help you determine on stain or paint texture and tone. So they will prepare the top of your board by cleaning all the dust and ensuring that all the panels are still in excellent condition.

If you want a fast improvement to a gate or a barrier to your corrosion resistance, and you want to colour the entire from outside your residence, Sydney painters are ready to support you! They are specialized in painting exterior surfaces of all sorts, from roofs and walls to siding, plasterboard and more.

[upscalepainting123]

Why in Sydney are painters in demand?

Painters are in high demand in Sydney and it's not hard to see why. Sydney is one of Australia's most vibrant and dynamic cities, offering a diverse range of architectural styles from historic landmarks to modern skyscrapers, creating a constant need for skilled painting professionals. One of the main reasons Sydney painters are in demand is the city's booming real estate market. With a constant influx of residents and businesses drawn to Sydney's economic opportunities and cosmopolitan lifestyle, there is a constant demand for property maintenance and improvement.

Whether painting heritage houses in the eastern suburbs or beautifying commercial premises in the CBD, painters play an important role in improving the appearance and value of properties across the city. In addition, Sydney's climate of lots of sunshine and occasional rain can damage exterior surfaces, requiring regular painting and maintenance to protect against weather and damage. This constant need for maintenance further increases the demand for professional painters who can deliver quality work and lasting results.

Additionally, Sydney's reputation as a cultural center and tourist destination means that painting services are always in demand in hospitality, retail and entertainment venues that strive to create inviting and memorable experiences for visitors. Basically, in Sydney painters are in demand because they play a key role in preserving the city's architectural heritage, increasing property values ​​and creating the vibrant and dynamic aesthetic that defines Australia's largest metropolis.

[easternpaintings]

Trusted specialist  Painter services in Eastern Suburbs

Ensure your painting work should be accomplish with satisfaction. Eastern beaches offer trusted services of painters in Eastern Suburbs with over many years of experience in painting workmanship.

[jackpaint321]

Top 7 Steps Pro Painters Never Forget To Follow

Once you scrap the old paint coat, you have to wash the walls. Paint residues are always left behind on the walls. Expert painters in Sydney Eastern Suburbs will never leave the walls without washing. This task is essential as water will wash away all paint particles and debris.

[woman-loving]

Lesbian Socialising in 1940s-50s Sydney

Selection from Unnamed Desires: A Sydney Lesbian History, Rebecca Jennings, 2015.

Much of the international literature in the history of lesbian social practices has prioritised commercial spaces such as bars and nightclubs, suggesting that these venues represented the international standard of lesbian socialising in this period. Focusing primarily on large British and American cities, historians have charted the emergence of developed commercial lesbian subcultures after the Second World War.[4] However, the lesbian social scene in Sydney in the immediate postwar decades differs significantly from the subcultural patterns described in these accounts and complicates the accepted picture in a number of interesting ways. Available oral history evidence suggests that lesbians only appeared on Sydney’s camp social scene--as the early lesbian and gay bar culture was known--in significant numbers in the early 1960s, when they began frequenting bars and cabaret clubs alongside camp men. Prior to this, much of the evidence points to a unique lesbian scene in Sydney, centred on private networks meeting at house parties and later in social groups. The predominance of private rather than public patterns of socialising in the immediate postwar decades had a lasting impact on the development of lesbian social practices and subcultural identities throughout the period being explored. Individual women’s use of both public and private space was shaped in a variety of ways by behavioural norms defined in these private social spheres. Moreover, given that, as Elizabeth Kennedy and Madeline Davis claim, ‘community is key to the development of twentieth-century lesbian identity and consciousness’, these spatial practices also had a significant impact on notions of lesbian identity in the city.[5] [...]

Lesbian socialising in the 1940s and 1950s Evidence of a lesbian commercial bar scene in Sydney piror to the 1960s is scarce and seems to point to a limited lesbian presence within a larger, predominantly male, camp scene. A small number of camp men recall occasional pre-1960 encounters with lesbians on the commercial camp scene. Dennis, who frequented the camp male venue Rainard’s Restaurant on King Street in the CBD in 1950s, believed that the two women owners were lesbians. He recalled:

“Rainards was another place we used to go, too, and that was run by, looking back now, two gay women. It was down in, appropriately, in the Queens Club, downstairs. And there was a Hungarian countess that was on hard times with a black cat playing the piano.”[6]

Another narrator suggested that the attendants to the drag queens at the grand artists’ balls of the 1950s were lesbians in drag. Some lesbians also mingled with the bohemian underworld of Kings Cross in the 195s, socialising in cafes and hotels with artists, camp men and Eastern European migrants. In 1955, the sensationalist tabloid newspaper, the Truth, claimed:

“Police told Truth this week that dozens of mannishly-dressed lesbian couples can be seen in Darlinghurst Rd., King’s Cross, every afternoon and night. They live as married couples--’husband’ and ‘wife’ and practise their disgusting perversions in secret. Something, however, they break out. Recently there was a fierce brawl in the lounge of a fashionable King’s Cross hotel. Two female perverts fought bitterly over the favors of a third woman.”[7]

Such descriptions suggest that a small number of ‘mannish’ or tough lesbians, some of whom where known to the police for minor offences such as brawling, vagrancy and indecent language, enjoyed a presence on the bohemian and camp male scene in the 1950s. However, oral history interviews with women who were attracted to other women in this period demonstrate that many women were not aware of the existence of commercial camp venues in the 1940s and 1950s and did not frequent them. [...]

Research into lesbian bars and commercial venues outside Australia has shown that lesbian bar scenes had become established in many American and British cities by the 1940s. [...] However, these large metropolitan centres may not be representative of a broader international trend--lesbian social practices in smaller cities and non-urban areas undoubtedly differed significantly from this model. While London and New York both had populations in excess of eight million in 1948, Australia’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, recorded populations of 1,484,004 and 1,226,409 respectively (in 1947).[11] Lucy Chesser’s work on Melbourne subcultures in the 1960s suggests that these population differences had a significant impact on the nature of lesbian socialising in Australia and that a lesbian commercial scene was only beginning to develop in Melbourne in the late 1960s. [...] Prior to this, Chesser claims, the only venues available to lesbians were a coffee shop in the city centre, which operated in various locations in the 1950s and 1960s, and a small number of predominantly male, heterosexual hotels (public houses), in which lesbians were tolerated on Saturday afternoons.[13] This pattern reflected that in Sydney, where a lesbian presence was rarely noted on the camp scene in the 1950s or earlier and women only began to join a mixed camp bar culture in significant numbers in the 1960s.

While the emergence of a commercial scene in the UK and US in the decades after the war in part reflected the growing social acceptability of public drinking for women, postwar Sydney was notable for its restrictive female public drinking culture and this also impacted on the nature of the lesbian scene in the city. Licensing laws in place in New South Wales from the First World War until 1957 enforced six o’clock closing of public bars, and these had a significant impact on gendered conventions of public drinking. Legislation explicitly prohibited women from drinking in public bars, confining them to separate saloon bars or ‘ladies’ lounges’. As the restrictive licensing hours began to have an influence on drinking habits, publicans increasingly adapted the layout of their premises to accommodate the large numbers of men who frequented bars for high-intensity drinking between five and six in the evening. The ‘six o’clock swill’, as it became known, required long bars and large areas of standing room to enable crowds of male patrons to fit into the bar and order drinks quickly. In this postwar drinking culture, saloon bars were increasingly sidelined and the practice of drinking in hotels became a highly masculinised pursuit.[14] While lounge or saloon bars continued to accept women patrons in some hotels in the 1940s and 1950s, cultural assumptions about hotels as masculine spaces rendered hotel lounges largely unacceptable for the majority of women and those who did frequent them were regarded as ‘rough’ and unfeminine. It was not until the reform of licensing laws in 1957 that the prohibition on women drinking in public bars was lifted and hotels began to be designed to accommodate mixed drinking in pub lounges. In the meantime, however, the cultural coding of hotels as masculine spaces had become firmly embedded in social norms and women found themselves unwelcome in bars for decades after the legislative change.[15]

Lesbian socialising in Sydney was therefore primarily located in alternative sites in this period, reflecting broader gendered leisure practices in postwar Australia. Same-sex attracted women forged private friendship networks centred on sports clubs, work in occupations such as the army, and artistic circles based around theatres and musicians, and in this period it was these patterns of socialising which dominated the lesbian social scene in Sydney.[16] Beverley and Georgina, who met in the years after the Second World War, recalled a diverse social life in the 1940s and 1950s. The couple met at a picnic organised by a mutual friend and, after building a network of about eight or nine lesbian friends, socialised at picnics, tennis clubs and each other’s houses. The women would also go on holiday together, staying in motels or renting an old shack on the Central Coast. In addition to this circle, they were part of a mixed camp social scene. Georgina recalled that they socialised ‘with the boys as well, the boys were all in, we knew a lot of the boys, a lot of them. We used to go to their parties and everything else, because we were always very friendly with the boys.’[17] Other sources also suggest that house parties provided an important and long-standing alternative to the bar scene for lesbians in the immediate postwar period. In his semi-autobiographical novel At the Cross, Jon Rose describes a camp party at Potts Point in Sydney’s eastern suburbs during the Second World War, at which lesbian painters and actresses mixed with drag queens and camp window-dressers.[18] Large-scale house parties on long weekends such as the Queen’s Birthday weekend were an aspect of the male camp scene in the late 1950s and early 1960s and it is clear that some lesbians attended these.[19]

The importance of friendship networks and the difficulties for women in socialising in a public bar scene suggest that house parties and outdoor activities may have been central to the lesbian social scene in Sydney in the immediate postwar decades. This tendency to socialise in small networks of friends, rather than as members of a larger lesbian community, shaped the models of identity developing in Sydney. Small private friendship circles tended not to evolve rigid rules of image and behaviour to which newcomers were expected to conform. Instead, women who socialised with circles of lesbian friends in this period typically describe themselves as ‘discreet’ and conforming to wider societal norms. Margaret, who went out to restaurants with her girlfriend in the late 1950s, described their appearance as ‘nice, well-dressed secretaries’ and herself as ‘like some respectable housewife’, while Rae, who worked in the city, recalled that she and her friends socialised in dresses, hats and gloves.[20] Coral also remembered that, in the late 1950s, she and her girlfriend: ‘Didn’t wear trousers or anything like that, of course, dressed very, very nicely’ at the mixed house parties they attended.[21] There was limited interaction between different friendship circles in this period, when it was often extremely difficult to locate other lesbians, and there was therefore little opportunity for the development of a larger, collective lesbian identity or subculture.

[dmeraty]

How Much Does a Bathroom Renovation Cost in Sydney?

When planning a bathroom renovation, keep in mind the various types and costs involved. Some renovations require total demolition of the existing bathroom, while others are cosmetic makeovers. A cosmetic makeover is a great option if you want to reduce the cost of the entire project while maintaining the same aesthetic style and functionality of the room. You can also save money by choosing this option if you plan to resell the property in the future.

The cost of hiring a licensed electrician is another significant component of bathroom renovation sydney cost. This professional must be licensed to work in the area, as he will be installing electrical wiring and installing the major components of the bathroom. A licensed electrician will charge between $75 and $100 per hour. The price will depend on the size of the bathroom, how much material and prep work is required.

The average price of a bathroom renovation in Sydney ranges from $20,000 to $35,000, but this price can vary depending on the location and size of the space. Areas like the Eastern Suburbs and the Northern Beaches usually see higher prices than the rest of Sydney. Another option is to go with a bathroom makeover, which is a lower cost option than a full renovation, but may come with limited warranties.

A bathroom renovation in Sydney can be very expensive, so it is essential to compare prices and quality. While a cheap quote might look appealing, you may be getting low quality service and workmanship. To get an accurate quote, consult an expert bathroom planner. These professionals will also provide an idea of the total cost of the project.

In addition to a plumber, it is also important to hire a painter and a tiler. These three professionals will be responsible for bringing the new look to your bathroom. Getting an itemised quote will help you avoid any unpleasant surprises. Tiling is a crucial element in a bathroom renovation, as it pulls the room together and improves visual appeal. A good tiler will also pay attention to drainage.

The cost of bathroom renovation in Sydney will depend on the type of work you want done and the materials used. Depending on the type and size of the bathroom, you may end up spending anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000 or more. The price will also vary depending on whether you want a high-end look or a budget-conscious design.

In addition to the cost, it is important to consider the quality of workmanship you want. Make sure you pay a fair price for the services of a qualified tradesperson, who has a proven track record. Ask for multiple quotes from tradespersons and choose a contractor based on reviews and photos of previous work. Also, make sure that you find out if the services included materials, as these can be costly.

If you want a luxurious bathroom, it is important to choose the right tiles and finishes. Choosing a tiler will make or break your bathroom renovation. Tiling is a very difficult job, and it requires skill to be precise. The cost of tiling a bathroom in Sydney can run you anywhere from $30 to $100 per square metre.

[ccohanlon]

life’s a beach

The Barrenjoey Peninsula points like a crooked finger across the mouth of Broken Bay, a large, natural harbor and estuary, north of Sydney. On maps, it is drafted into Sydney's metropolitan sprawl. Twenty-odd miles from the center by road, the Peninsula is technically the northernmost extension of the heavily built-up suburbs that are strewn along the coast on either side of the city's best-known landmark, the Harbor Bridge.

And yet, as anybody who lives here will be quick to tell you (inevitably, resorting to cliché), the Barrenjoey Peninsula is really a patch of God's own country. The cliché is easy to forgive. On the Peninsula's eastern side, sandstone headlands and surf beaches and wide, scalloped bays face the Pacific Ocean, while its western side forms a shore of a deep, protected inlet — the Pittwater — edged with shallows, rocky flats and beaches. There, gnarled eucalyptus trees, ferns and lantana grow down between wooden boathouses to the water, where hundreds of small craft swing with the tide on moorings or strain against warps tied to white-painted jetties.

When my family first moved to the Peninsula, 33 years ago, no more than a couple of thousand people lived in four small towns scattered along five miles of narrow blacktop that snaked up and around the hillside forests and down beside the surf beaches. It was a casual, loosely knit community — a few shopkeepers looking forward to the weekend and summer vacation trade, some slightly bohemian writers and painters taking advantage of the cheap rents and the scenery, and a nomadic bunch of surfers who, in those days before big-money competitions, were mostly regarded as undesirable, unemployed bums. The houses were fiberboard or timber bungalows with corrugated tin roofs, surrounded by gum trees and tangled subtropical shrubs. Possums pilfered the garbage and koalas stupefied by gum leaves lumbered aimlessly through the streets.

There are still signs nailed to roadside telephone poles warning motorists about the koalas, but there are fewer koalas around these days. A lot of the bushland has been subdivided and sold off for home sites, shopping arcades and offices. The towns remain relatively small but slowly they are being transformed into fashionable suburbs, complete with boutiques, art galleries, fancy delicatessens and restaurants. Nowadays, a tin-roofed shack on the waterfront can cost you a third of a million dollars.

Somehow, though, the Peninsula manages to hang on to its footloose character. The city and its mud-brown pall of smog seems to loom nearer - it is nearer and hundreds of us commute to it every day - but psychologically it's a long way away. The Peninsula's air is scrubbed clean by the salt-laden ocean breezes and the greenery is still dense enough to disguise the close proximity of one house to another. And there are the beaches. Whatever else has changed, life on the Peninsula still revolves around its beaches. Even in winter, many people begin their day jogging along the foreshore or the soft slopes of the dunes, swimming in the rock pools or riding the waves that peak and break on the shelving banks near the headlands. Afterward, they peel off their swimsuits in the beachfront parking lots, towel down and don sober business attire, then drive straight to work.

Everybody here has a favorite surf beach, one that he or she is drawn to most often out of the half a dozen on the Peninsula. Mine is Newport. And if pushed for a reason, I'd have to admit that it's because it reminds me of a beach in 1960's Southern California, somewhere they might have filmed one of those beach-blanket B-movies starring Sandra Dee and Tab Hunter.

Only a row of pines and a parking lot stand between the wide half-moon of sand and the rows of box-like shops and offices that form the town's main strip on either side of Barrenjoey Road. The nearness of the beach seeps into the local consciousness like a drug. Barefoot women in bikinis or light cotton wraps wander happily along the sidewalks; teen-age surfers with impressive muscle tone stand in the open fronts of milk bars, clutching their shiny, multicolored boards. The musky whiff of salt air, hot skin and coconut oil seems to cling even to the postcards.

There is much the same atmosphere at Avalon and Whale Beach, north of Newport — although with an added element of high style. Avalon, Whale Beach and Palm Beach are where the 'A' list of Sydney's social register camps out in summer, renting lavish haciendas in which to entertain a few of the local residents — such as the film director Peter Weir, the actor Bryan Brown and his wife, the actress Rachel Ward, the author Thomas Keneally and the opera singer Joan Sutherland.

Bilgola is different. Quiet and out of the way, it nestles in a subtropical valley below the main road between Newport and Avalon. Thick rain forest grows down a narrow cleft in the hillside to the edge of the beach where palm trees and strange-looking succulents encircle the houses, shutting out all but a few bright blades of light.

Palm Beach is the most northern — and, no doubt about it, the most beautiful — of the beaches: a mile or more of orange sand fringed at its southern end with windblown pine and palm trees, the steep hills above it falling to low grassland and empty dunes. The dunes reach up to the sandstone buttresses of Barrenjoey Head, at the end of the Peninsula, to form a sort of dike between the ocean and the Pittwater. A stone lighthouse stands on top of the Head; built in 1881, it's one of the oldest structures left on the Peninsula.

To the hundreds of visitors who flock there at weekends, Palm Beach is the essential Peninsula — and, maybe, the essential Australian — experience. Families of newly arrived Mediterranean immigrants fetch extravagant picnics for 10 or 20 people from the trunks of brand-new, Japanese-built sedans and lay them out on the grass at Governor Phillip Park. Their children play soccer on the sand or swim in the surf, under the watchful eyes of black-clad elders. Hikers stride along the Pittwater side of the dunes, to the roughly hewn trails that either ascend to the lighthouse — from where the views of Broken Bay and Palm Beach are heart-stopping — or wind around the base of the Head. Deeply suntanned men in white cotton trousers and shirts and long-limbed women in designer beachwear drape themselves on the veranda of the Cabbage Tree Club on Ocean Road, opposite the beach. The club is Sydney's most exclusive watering hole, but oddly, it's an exclusivity based not on wealth or political clout (even though its membership has plenty of both) but on whether one has been an active member of a local surf life-saving club.

There is a natural balance between the outcrops of tumbled-down rock washed by curling surf on one side of the Peninsula and the sheltered calm of the Pittwater, where cormorants, seagulls, ibises and pelicans pick at the sandy crab-holes and stranded shellfish above the low-tide mark. Even the vegetation on the shores of the Pittwater seems more tropical, more abundant: bamboo, palms, rubber plants and banana trees, flowering frangipani, strelitzia, hibiscus and jacaranda trees all grow on top of each other along the roadsides and the unkempt perimeters of private gardens. On warm summer evenings, a sweet, humid scent hangs in the air to mix with the charcoal smoke of barbecue fires. Thousands of cicadas buzz and click in the undergrowth.

These are the kinds of evenings when I like to sit on Paradise or Clareville Beach — both small, secluded stretches of fine, pale sand and flat water, a few minutes' drive from the shops at Avalon — and watch the sun go down behind the green-black hills on the western shores of the Pittwater. The hills are part of the Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park, 35,000 acres of bushland covering most of the southern shore of Broken Bay and, farther west, Cowan Creek. When the park was established in 1894, all of the country's east coast must have looked as raw and forbidding: everywhere, walls of fractured sandstone, forest and scrub.

Mackerel is a tiny beach community on the eastern edge of the park, opposite Palm Beach, inaccessible by road. The few hundred year-round residents rely on the ferry service from the Palm Beach public wharf, or their own small craft, to bring what they need across the Pittwater. The inconvenience, a friend who lives there tells me, is outweighed by the tranquillity and unspoiled beauty. Wild ducks, wallabies, ring-tailed possums, koalas and, less welcome, brown, black and tiger snakes stray unafraid into backyards and even kitchens, scavenging for food. A freshwater creek flows through the grass-covered flats to the beach where it warms the pools of salt water left behind by the tide on the sandbanks.

Adjacent to Mackerel, and reached by the same ferry, is The Basin. It is popular as a yacht anchorage and as a pine-shaded, beachside campsite, but The Basin's appeal as a place to picnic, enjoy the scenery and swim in the safe lagoon — a net keeps the sharks out — wears thin in summer when the inlet is crowded and noisy. In spring or autumn, when the days are cooler and the vacationers have gone home, there are well-marked trails that meander up through the bush and along the cliff tops. Half-hidden under rocky overhangs and inside shallow caves are primitive paintings, the last traces of a local aboriginal culture wiped out by white settlers at the turn of the century.

There are days on the Peninsula when the heat and humidity make the slightest body movement seem like a penance. I live in a big, timber-framed place built back in the early 1950's on a half-acre oceanfront at Whale Beach, but even here, in summer, I have to open all the doors and windows to catch a breeze. Often, the only thing to do is prepare a rum-laced fruit punch, find a good book — an early Thomas McGuane novel, maybe, or a collection of Tennessee Williams stories, something with the right mood of sweet-smelling, tropical decay about it — and lie naked in a deck chair on the veranda until dusk.

Today is going to be one of those days. Right now, as I write, the sun is coming up. A warm, almost crimson light spills off the clouds gathered low over the ocean. There's no wind. A long swell is rolling in from the east, foaming over the rocky ledges beneath the headlands as it arcs towards the beach. With the French doors open, all I can hear are bird song and the whispered rushing of the surf.

First published in The New York Times’ Travel & Leisure section (under the by-line, Chris West), USA, 1986.