Christmas Critters

The past few days have been taken up with sourcing taps, tiles, basins etc for the renovation. I only came away with about half the tap fittings for the bathroom, but I've made decisions about all the important stuff. At the moment i can't decide between two antique cabinets for the bathroom. The one is a bit small, and the other a bit... well, burnt. The dealer assures me the burnmarks add character....

We'll be taking a break from this blog untill we get back from holidays on the 3rd, be sure to check back on the 5th when the demolition commences!



I made these little guys for my youngest niece and nephew Malaika and Ethan.

Merry Christmas!

Builders Holiday and a holiday from builders

We finished stage 1 of our building project a week early, and since we don't want to start stage 2 (demolition!) over the festive season (for security reasons) we are having a wonderfull break from building untill the real madness begins on 5 Jan. We are reasonably happy with the work so far.

Shafiq the builder's report card so far:
On the plus side he runs a neat, clean and tight building site; he arrives early and is on site all day; he has met his first deadline. On the down side, he seems to try and get away with cutting any corners he can in the building process, so you have to watch him very closely, and make sure you are informed enough to spot any mistakes! Mmmmm, i'm sure i've heard people say that before about their builders, is this an industry thing? If only we had lots of money and could pay for a project manager and a big building contractor!

O well, whenever I get despondent about our renovation i like to look at the pics of the front of the house when we bought it- the horror!




...and what it looks like now:

week 2: Oi vey!

Yesterday was spent fixing the mistake below: we noticed that the floor wasn't excavated enough to allow for the desired height of the roof, so they had to excavate and underpin some more... lets hope this was done right.



And tomorrow will partially be spent fixing today's mistake: these bricks standing out from the side wall indicate a wall in completely the wrong place... oi vey.

BASHEWS

During excavations we discovered this bottle of Bashews mineral water under the house. Bashews is a soft drink only sold in the Western Cape, and still sold at our corner cafe. I can only assume it landed there when the house was built, which is estimated to be around 60-70 years ago. Could that be? I can't find any info about how old the factory is.

Check back tonight for a progress report and some pics of the build.

Progress!

After some initial panicking and sweating about the builder deviating from the engineers drawings, we had the engineers in and they gave the foundations and the underpinning the thumbs up. (Underpinning, I soon found out, means excavating under an existing wall and then strenghthening and stabilising it with brick and concrete to make it strong enough, in our case, to carry the weight of three stories on top of it. You have to do this in sections to keep the wall stable.)

Hard to believe that this pic was taken 2 days ago!



And here's the start of another wall...


...and more progress on the other side

Day 4 Keep calm and carry on!

In times like these you need some extra help, sometimes in the form of a desktop or poster that has to carve itself into your subconscious, ensuring you dont commit any crimes in a moment of madness. Look no further than the classic British WW2 poster. You can make it a desktop as I have or order it from Etsy.com.

Day 2 The Great Wall part 1

Our building is 2 days down and we hear that we were supposed to notify the building inspector for our ward 3 days prior to commencement of building. So now we have to try and get hold of him and put the brakes on what is brewing under the house.



What is brewing is that the builder already seems to be doing things his own way, Shafiq style we'll call it. Well I dont care as long as it stays up and it's legal. But we might have to get in the structural engineers at a little fortune to come and give us 15 minutes of their time.

Day 1, week 1

Yesterday we had to prepare the space in the back for the builders to start today. This required cutting the vines that creeped over from the neighbours. It was really painfull as the vines were lush and we were finally seeing grapes on our side of the wall.



This morning we were really anxious before the arrival of the builder. I imagined him laughing about the suckers that gave him ten grand as he parties it up in Grand West or wherever builders go to blow your hard earned money. But he showed up in time with his off beat sense of humor intact and now we have a neat hole under the hole that's already there. In his words "I found a big mamba (very poisonous african snake) in your backyard." Translation: I found a bloody big rock that took hours to break up. Relief...

AAArrgh!

This blog is n hold till council are done with our plans..... eight months and counting!

Welcome to Woodstock

This is our little green house in the suburb of Walmer Estate in the greater Woodstock area, Cape Town. It was very run down when we bought it, but with a lick of paint and a lot of TLC, its starting to look really nice now! ...except for the back of the house. This is where we want to break down the current bathroom, build a storeroom, a new dining nook, a stoep, a bathroom and an office upstairs.

It has been over 4 months now since we submitted or plans to council- and still they are coming back with changes and objections. Most recently - after spending weeks trying to get a particularly elusive neighbour to sign a letter of no objection for our renovation, my architect has advised us to also get the signatures of our local councilor and the Rate Payers Association too! Who next? Should I just get the signature of the President for good measure as well? Has anyone else had these problems?