February 2024

It isn’t often that we get the opportunity to salvage timber from a landmark building that is such a part of Canberra’s cultural life as Llewellyn Hall!

Llewellyn Hall has been the home to the Canberra School of Music since 1976, when students and staff moved across to the new iconic building from their outgrown location in Griffith. The heritage listed building was the work of well-known architects Darryl Jackson and Evan Walker, who were commissioned by the National Capital Development Commission in the 1970s. Llewellyn Hall is a striking example of late twentieth century Brutalist style, and was officially opened on 24 September 1976. 

An extra heavy duty and thick brushbox floor was originally laid in the backstage areas of Llewellyn Hall, but years of moving grand pianos across it damaged sections in the main thoroughfares and the floor had to be replaced. There was originally 600 sqm of flooring in total, but because of the damage from the pianos, the team at Supreme Timber Floors and Forge Constructions were unfortunately only able to save a proportion of the whole floor.

After we docked out damaged sections and cleaned the tongue and groove, we have 124 sqm of high quality, musically infused floor boards available. The boards are 58mm wide and 24mm thick and are a beautiful brushbox with the richer red-brown tones of the old growth timber.

We have freshly oiled samples available here to look at. The boards can be lightly sanded (as per the left section in our sample) to retain some of the aged surface, or the boards could be sanded back more thoroughly to fully reveal the colour and grain of the nearly 50 year old brushbox flooring. The section at the right in the photo below shows the original deteriorated finish.

There is at least another 50 years of wear left in these boards with 11mm of thickness above the tongue - for comparison a standard floor board has 5-7mm of timber above the tongue.

To include this historic floor in your building or renovation project, call us on 02 6282 9900 or come in to our workshop and showroom at 10 Mildura St Fyshwick.