I’ve developed a passion for secret gardens; hidden-away gardens and courtyards.  Having downsized from a property of just under 4000 square metres to one of just over 800, I have a newfound respect for gardeners who can turn a small area into an enticing, exciting, verdant space.  It’s reasonably easy to make a big gardens with huge trees and broad flower beds filled with shrubs, perennials and annuals look impressive.  It takes talent and imagination to make a small garden interesting.

My sister in law has just that talent.  She and my brother live in a townhouse in Cape Town.  Their complex is on the lower slopes of Table Mountain, below the cable station and very close to the city.  Looking at the building from the outside, you’d never guess  that one of the units has a magical garden hidden behind it.

As you walk in the front door of their home, your eye is immediately drawn to the lush, green oasis beyond the French door leading out of their living room.  Their garden is approximately 7 by 10 metres big and all you want to do is go outside:

An old bathtub makes a perfect herb garden.

You’ve got to love the luxuriant tresses of the guy below:

Pam made the pottery planter herself.

That’s a cast iron cat silhouette on the wall above.

An old Xhosa corn grinding stone finds new purpose as a birdbath.

A Tiny Garden Shed hides beneath Star Jasmine.

Baby Robins in Ivy on the Garden Wall.  

Magnificent Clivia

A Cape Robin Finds Cheese on the Feeder.

Each time I visit Cape Town, I look forward to visiting this enchanting garden.   It’s hard to believe that so much magic has been conjured out of approximately 7X10 metres.

When it comes to gardens, my sister-in-law has made something very clear:  Paradise can come in quite a small package.

(Some of the photographs in this post were taken by my sister-in-law, Pam Parkin.)

Having survived the whole house-building process running a full year over the expected completion date, there are probably quite a few nuggets of advice I could offer someone about to embark on a similar exercise but if I had to pick just one thing, it would be to keep ‘Inspiration Files’.  The minute the tiniest seed of the possibility of building your own home takes root, start a file.

I spent hours and hours poring over decorating and gardening magazines in the year leading up to us finding the right property on which to build and I soon learned that thinking I could simply go back to a particular page or article when I wanted it, did not work.  I lost things along the way and so I started cutting out and filing every single photograph or article that struck a chord.  It didn’t take long before my first file was too cumbersome to manage and so I started ‘sub-files’; one for kitchens and bathrooms, one for gardens, patios and pools and another one for everything else in between.  I discovered I have something of a passion for all things building and décor related and when I wasn’t buried in a decorating magazine, I was engrossed on Houzz or Pinterest although in the end Houzz seemed to work best for me.

When you keep photographs or on-line records of designs that appeal, over time a particular style becomes a theme throughout.  An unexpected advantage that this gave me when the time came to choose finishes was the speed and ease with which we were able to make decisions.  Before the first brick was laid, I had a pretty clear picture of how the finished house would look both from outside and in and it reduced hugely the amount of time we had to spend trawling around building supply stores spread around the dusty outskirts of Johannesburg.

The stored ‘library’ of photographs also proved very useful on one or two occasions when it was inexplicably difficult to convey an idea or image to a workman.  A picture does indeed  paint a thousand words.

Now, as the dust is finally starting to settle and our new home continues to unfold itself, I am finding it especially rewarding to see  how some things, that were once just ideas inspired by magazine pictures and photos on websites, have come into being.

One of the very first pictures I saved off Houzz was the one below.  I love baking but seldom managed to extract the relevant baking pan or tray from a drawer or cupboard without causing something of a metal avalanche and a cacophony of chaos.  This vertically divided drawer is simple and totally practical.  I don’t know why they’re not standard features in all kitchens.

Baking Tray Drawer

A couple of years ago, when this house was not yet out of the ground, I opened a British House and Garden magazine onto the page below:

I can’t actually say what it was about this light fitting that so enchanted me, but it sent me off on a mission to find something similar.  While in London last June, by sheer chance I found something very similar at the Petersham Nursery Gardens in Richmond:

At Petersham Nurseries

It was a fraction of the price of the Jamb one but would have required shipping.  And then, an off-chance visit to a lighting shop just a few kilometres from home, uncovered the ones below:

Globe lanterns at 44 Stanley

It couldn’t have been simpler but I’d enjoyed the search.

Globe Lantern over our stairwell.

Globe lantern seen from outside.

And then there was my paternal grandmother’s rather beautiful chaise-longue:  It has had several incarnations in its lifetime even that I can remember; gold velvet, maroon velvet, then a slight departure from tradition, a dark blue check.  I felt it needed a new image but wanted some independent encouragement before embarking on a major change.  And I found it in the pictures below:

I seem to have cut this picture out of an American Elle Decorating magazine in 2013.

The photo above validated my idea of covering my chaise in something unexpected.

I loved this fabric but couldn’t track it down.

I loved this one even more because of the introduction of blue.

I spent many hours and covered quite a few miles looking for something resembling the two stripy fabrics in the pictures above and then, one rainy afternoon in London last year I found myself with the time and inclination to go to Liberty’s.  Going to Liberty’s is always a treat but their fabric department is gorgeous and I spent ages just leafing through fabric samples.

I was rewarded with the discovery of a whole selection of Pierre Frey fabrics, in particular the one below.

Arriving back in South Africa, I established that Mavromac are importers of Pierre Frey fabrics and to cut a long story short the end result is this:

Granny’s Chaise, now brightly attired, in the library.

Close up of stripy velvet.

I’m really happy with the way it turned out.  So much of the house is neutral but this offers a bright surprise as you turn a corner.

Then there was the water feature we wanted on the retaining wall in the driveway.  Below are the photographs I had kept from old South African gardening magazines:

There was potential for the driveway area on the south side of the house to become something of a sun trap being brick paved and surrounded by pale grey walls and white garage doors.  I hoped that the sound of running water would off-set the heat and felt that cladding just that retaining wall with stone would soften the whole effect.  Quite fortuitously, quite early on in the building process, a man came in off the street and offered his services as a stone mason.  He told us where to find some of the walls he’d built in the neighbourhood and on the strength of what we saw, we hired him.  He did a beautiful job here and the end result is exactly as I’d hoped it would be.

Our driveway water feature.

And then there were the barn doors first spotted on Houzz.  I fell in love with the photo below and set about finding out if we could get something similar installed in our third bedroom and our guest suite, both of which have quite small en suite bathrooms.

Barn sliding door in bedroom 3.

Barn slider in guest suite.

And from another perspective.

Island Recipe Book Shelves.

The photograph below, taken from Houzz, was one of my favourite kitchen pictures.

Kitchen display cupboards.

Under counter windows, also seen on Houzz and display cupboards in our new kitchen.

Oggie Flooring adverts are beguiling.  We’d chosen our floors before our foundations were dug.

Magazine Advertisement for Oggie Floors.

 

Oggie floor in situ!

And finally, there’s the pool.  I had several photographs filed including this one.  I found it quite difficult to get my way with the ‘pool man’ who seemed to have quite set ideas about how a pool should look; essentially bright turquoise with an equally bright mosaic edging. This photograph was particularly helpful.

One of the magazine photos I kept as inspiration for our pool.

And as a direct result of having this photo filed, we’ve ended up with this:

A view of our pool from the south east corner of the garden.

The pool is 10 metres long but quite narrow.  I hoped it would resemble a farm dipping tank.  I’m not sure that it does but I do like the effect of the dark grey lining and simple cement tile coping.  The mosaics, hard to see in this photo, are dark grey glass. The three fountains are connected to the filter pump but can be switched on and off separately.

Going over this post, I can’t help feeling that keeping all those files and records was absolutely invaluable.  And I still enjoy going through them and I still keep adding to them.  What can I build next?