Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)
Hillbilly Homes
Dear Jonno,
We plan to live in a development on a 1ha piece of land in the Hawane district of Swaziland, along with our daughter and son-in-law. Each family will have its own dwelling.
This move is geared towards a simpler, downsized lifestyle in beautiful surroundings. We hope to develop something along the lines of a Tuscan-style house with verandas all around to accommodate our hobbies, such as carpentry and gardening.
The design also needs to take into account the cold winters, the mountainous terrain and the valuable trees available for materials (roofing and so on).
We are not obsessed with luxurious styling and want to keep costs down, but enjoy beamed ceilings and cement flooring.
We envisage a two-bedroomed house with both bedrooms en suite (shower, basin and toilet), a large living area with a centralised fireplace, loft or mezzanine room for an office, and an open-plan kitchen.
The large verandas could incorporate garaging (vehicles, caravan and boat), and a workshop, all possibly in one unit. A small plunge pool would be nice, too.
Many thanks in anticipation. Sincerely,
Chris and Jet
Dear Chris and Jet,
Thanks for the description of your home. As you can imagine, there are many possibilities of a functional layout for current and future use. I’ve placed the bedrooms on either side of the central open-beamed living area.
Your workshop could, in time, be converted to a third bedroom, with the storeroom as a closet and bathroom. The office is shown in the roof area as an attic room (coloured red), and is roughly 5m x 5m in size.
The double-pitched roof, typical of Tuscanstyle homes, is open-beamed over the living area and kitchen facilities. The other areas have regular horizontal ceilings, allowing for placement of electricity and plumbing.
The wrap-around veranda is more than adequate for your outdoor living. The support posts comprise sandstone or other rockwork. The veranda roofing can be covered with IBR sheeting or left open intermittently with pergola beams and vines as coverage.
Kind regards,
Jonno