throwdownyourguns

paint draw shoot hang play eat blog

Materials & Methods

Strictly Ballroom floor installed at art studio

The floor in storage

Studio floor

The floor installed before sanding and varnish

I had a great floor in my art studio for a while. After working on Baz Luhrmann's 1992 film Strictly Ballroom, I inherited the dance floor from the film set. I rented a truck, carted it from the film sound stage and re-laid it in my art studio (with a little help from my friends).

It was a big job lugging all that hardwood but it was worth it. For the filming the floor was made to look old and dark by spraying a thin coat of paint over it. So it initially looked pretty dull when it was first installed but I sanded the whole thing back and applied a couple of coats of clear varnish and it made a huge difference.

When the government finally kicked us out of the wharf studio, the floor came up and went in storage for a long time. I was there for years until water got into the container and ruined it.

I have had other art studios since then but none of them have had a floor quite like that.

Some of the paintings visible in the studio photos are shown on the right.

By the way, the photo' below is of the Toledo set from the Strictly Ballroom film. It was just near the studio. It was taken a while after the filming and a fence had been erected around the whole power station site. It's all gone now flattened to make way for the Sydney casino.