EXPERT ADVICE
How should you go about restoring a badly run-down heritage house? Marcus’s advice is to work with what you have and to keep it simple.
These days, a century-old house rarely ticks all the boxes for cosy get-togethers that spontaneously spill over from open-plan spaces onto a stoep. Marcus is a sociable, hospitable man who also loves modernist architecture. In Vosburg, however, he let himself be guided by his love for the Karoo landscape and respect for the home’s history and what the interior’s original layout would have been circa 1900.
“It was easy to work with this heritage because the floor plan and function of each room was simple and direct. The existing floor plan guided me to approach functional areas for cooking and sleeping in the same way as they were back in the day.” As in the past, there are still no en-suite bathrooms. “The storeroom and bathroom-cumlaundry that we built on outside flow naturally from the existing structure; here, we keep bicycles, a washing machine, garden tools and so on.”
At the top of Marcus’s list of dos and don’ts is working with the house as it is and retaining as much as possible. He offers an interesting perspective on the steel-frame windows, which definitely don’t date from 1900: “Many people would have wanted to replace them with wood. In reality, they form part of the home’s history; previous owners could, in fact, have installed them decades ago.”
All the interior walls, with the exception of those in the kitchen and dining room, were painted with what Marcus refers to as “ordinary contractor’s white”. “This simplicity is typical of the Karoo’s lime-washed buildings and neutral spaces. I think it’s important not to ‘over-restore’ things stylistically. Keep what’s there to reflect the building’s history. Get the input of an architect and do your own research on what is historically and stylistically applicable.
“Maintain the simplicity of the architecture.
And it’s simple: don’t add anything unnecessary.”
CONTACT 021 853 1362, marcussmit.co.za