My neighbours are busy with comprehensive renovations.
Shortly after they bought the house next to mine, Antony came around, plans in hand, to show me what they intended to do and to apologise in advance for the upheaval that lay ahead. (It was quite a commotion; the neighbours on the other side summarily cancelled their lease and fled back to the Netherlands...)
I think Antony expected to be faced with opposition and a good dose of crankiness; instead, he got curious me. Little did he know what I do for a living and even less that a building site doesn’t scare me – least of all, a renovation project! Because if I can’t change my own home, I can always live vicariously through the dreams of my neighbours, right?
Now and again, I invite myself over when Antony and his wife arrive in the evenings to check up on the day’s building progress. Then we exchange stories about the mysteries hidden in the walls of our homes, which look exactly the same because the entire row of eight semidetached houses was built more than a century ago on what was then Tamboerskloof Farm. Carbon copies of each other; so much so that I got a plan of his house when I asked for a copy of mine at Council.
Back then, the houses were simple rectangles divided into four rooms. Over the years, the respective owners have demolished walls and built on, but my neighbour is doing what I’ve always dreamed of doing: he’s breaking out all the interior walls of what was originally the entire labourer’s cottage to create one large living area. The ceilings have also been removed to create a spacious, double-volume cathedral-like space – let me just say I get greener with envy after each visit.
Suzette Niewoudt’s home in Stilbaai (see page 20) is also making things difficult for me. The floor plan of her beautiful home is exactly what I’ve always envisioned for when I build a house one day – complete with a bedroom on a mezzanine level. And I’ve always wanted exposed brick walls. In my current home, I decided to chop off some plaster only to discover that the walls are more clay than cement and if I didn’t close it all up again, the South-Easter might blow the whole lot away.
One can but dream... • We are currently judging the entries for this year’s Fix it with Flair competition, which of course means that there are even more temptations than usual on my desk. The Gibbons’ renovation project on page 50 is no exception. They told us that their kitchen was inspired by a Home cover from a few years ago. But it seems like the entire house is a clever interpretation of the many ideas we’ve shown in our monthly magazines and special issues over the years. We pored over their photographs with great curiosity, trying to remember which issues their ideas may have been gleaned from. I hope you enjoy their home as much as we did!