A flying visit to Johannesburg this past week showed up a little progress:
Cottage kitchen installed.
The counter tops in the cottage, guest suite and main house are in Caesarstone, colour; panecotta. Although I think chose these handles, I now want to change them…
Kitchen from another angle.
West Boundary Wall going up.
Through the opening of this temporary gate, you can see the boundary wall down the western side of the property. After endless trouble from our neighbour, including veiled threats, we have resorted to building this wall within the boundary line on our own property.
Sandbags outlining the pool.
The pool company, Curtis Pools, has started work. They have ‘outlined’ the pool with sandbags for now while the filling in of the surrounding garden continues.
Cottage has been painted and the veranda tiled.
Pavement/Sidewalk View of cottage.
The picture above is probably my favourite from the past week as it looks like something is nearing completion at last. A concerted effort has finally been made to clean up the pavement. The board in front of the tree is the pool company’s advertisement. The square to the left of the gate is the door in front of the electricity meter board and will be painted the same colour as the wall. If you look carefully at the top of the wall to the right of the gate, you can see that the electric fencing has been installed. We’ve tried to make it as unobtrusive as possible.
And finally, with reference to the photograph of the patio doors in my previous post, I came across the photo below in a magazine recently. It shows rather well what the finished product of our doors should eventually look like.
Example of completed stacking patio doors.
At this stage it’s hard to imagine that our veranda and garden will ever even vaguely resemble this, but hopefully we’re moving forward inch by inch.
home-in-the-making 
Hi Jacqui
Glad to see some semblance of progress….
When (if) changing kitchen cupboard handles remember to consider injury by bumping and catching of clothes etc
Cheers
Fred
It’s looking wonderful. I love the color of the cottage. And those stacked doors look lovely.
I love your natural colours in the cottage kitchen and the timber floors look fabulous.
Hi Jaqui
I am so impressed by your attention to detail. I got the same feeling when reading this post that I get when watching Grand Designs, namely that I could never carry out a project like this. I’d lose the will to live! Peter and I recently painted a wall four times before the colour was right and were both exhausted when it was finally achieved. The way you’re managing this project is a marvel to behold. Carry on the good work!
Heather x
Thanks Heather. Despite all the difficulties, especially having to manage it long-distance now, I am still enjoying the process. Funnily enough though, I think getting paint colours right is really tricky. We still haven’t found one we both like for the interior of the house and need to get onto that soon. Please come and visit us again once we’re finally in and settled.xx