Settled in after a few months

We've been in for a few months now. Here are some photos of the finished product...

Garage with Flat above reflecting mountain catching morning sun.

View from the Flat balcony early in the morning.

The kitchen/dining room/play room open plan area.

Stairs going up in hallway looking at backdoor.

View of kitchen from driveway. Washing line has been fixed up since photo!

Moving in

We moved in on 18 December! We moved into a very dirty, dusty house with no running water or kitchen. The water was connected by the end of the day and the hot water came on the next day. Although that night the geyser "exploded" and there was water all over the bathroom. It didn't explode and Wells (plumber/electrician/general worker) couldn't explain what the problem was... The garage was there for some more days until the friday. Some of the crew came back on saturday to clear the space where the old garage was. Our trusted builder went on holiday and we will discuss the completion with him in the new year. Hopefully he finds some money...



The garden was re-established. Here we are having a drink on the aption with the builder on the weekend before we moved in. We found out after the weekend that he had "run out of money". That is why we don't have a fully fitted kitchen. There is a temporary sink and we are using bookshelves to store our stuff.



Mum and the boys try out the new spa-bath - or jub-jub bath as they call it...

The end is near

The front of the house has paint... Inside, the tiling is complete. Photo on left is the "formal" lounge.


The old garage has its roof removed. The shell stayed like that looking like ground zero because of the fire. Eventually Kari had to get an outside contractor there to remove the garage before Christmas. It took 3 days. Solid stuff!

Update from Site meeting

3.5 weeks to go!
Things are getting tense. Some people aren't sleeping so well at night. Others have 'flu...
Here are some pictures from this morning's site meeting... Now I'm really up to date!


The tiling is being laid in the diningroom/lounge area on left and kitchen scullery on the right.



The flat is coming along nicely. On the right is inside the flat upstairs. When renting it out we will have to put a warning that only people shorter than 1m75 need apply...


The garage under the flat. Busy removing the plaster from the old flat. Lovely bricks!

More Updates

This is the window at the top of the stairs looking into the boys bathroom. Photo courtesy of Alick...

The QS stands at the front door of the house...


Garage/Flat is coming along nicely. 3 weeks to go...


Inside of Garage and view of the house from other side of canal. Very discreet behind the trees.

Tea Party at Mons Avenue

A couple of weekends ago, we invited some people around to have tea and choose colours for the walls.


In the "informal lounge".


Emmanuelle, Gramps and Nonna discuss the finer details of architecture...


Karen and Tracey discuss the finer details of bringing up babies while Daniel eyes out the tea.


Steve and Andrew discuss the finer details of...


Mrs LJ and Philip still working hard on a Saturday morning. Site office was moved into the boys room.

View over stairs to our dressing-room area.

Bridging the gap

Over two months have passed since the last post.

A lot has happened since then. That post was written during one of my last days of working for MIP. After that I moved over to Genesis and with that I had to give back my notebook that had everyting on it. I did save everything but getting the environment back up has taken some time and I suppose my new job has kept me busy.

Anyway. Where were we?


The roof was going up in September...


This is downstairs looking at the kitchen.




The boys room with ceiling in.


Wells had to put a flag up when we got to the top.


It was time for the flat to go now and make way for the new garage. Kessi inspects the scene...


The south side of the house.


The North-east Side of the house. Doors are in! Looking at the dinning room area.


Stairs are in. No longer do we need to climb through the upstairs window...


The boys room about to get their floor laid.


Disaster. Early one Monday morning, the site-office and storeroom below it catch fire.

The heat from the fire cracked all the windows on the south side. All had to be replaced.

And so that pretty much has been what has happened over the last 2 months.

Rain and more rain

There has been a lot of rain lately. Things are wet and we are hoping to get the roof on by early next week - before the next rain arrives. Below is the view that will be above the basins in the en-suite batchroom.

View from the street looking up at the windows on the top right. The circular window (boarded up) had to be moved 10cms after they put the beam up as it was not in the centre.

Benedict sitting in his room. We wont have that much sunshine as there will hopefully be a roof soon!

Looking dow in to the kitchen from upstairs. Same beam will be upstairs.