House facelift 2016

From the beginning of April, for two solid months, our house and yard was a shambles. We had decided to give the house a major facelift. My brother Daniel is a carpenter by profession but knows a great deal about plumbing, general DIY and intricate construction work as well so we decided to keep money in the family and rent his services for the period. The project initially started with re-doing the one bathroom and separate toilet that were terribly old-fashioned and in places had started falling apart. Secondly we wanted to paint most of the house and lastly tile the lounge floor. As things started and then progressed though, we noticed all kinds of other things that either had to get fixed or improved or entirely new things that we'd like to have. But the bathroom was the biggest project and it took up most of the time. It was hard putting up with all the dust, dirt and noise, especially since our timing turned out to be incredibly poor. The result is fantastic though and we're extremely pleased with everything Daniel did in the house. Here's a breakdown:

Bathroom
We took out the old bath, sink, cupboards and tiles, broke down the shower wall to just below knee-height and changed the position of the shower head completely. The bath was moved to under the window where it fit in much better length-wise, thereby opening up some space. Where the bath was, we utilized the space for a full-height cupboard in the corner with a basin in between that and the bath. Tiles left behind by the previous owner were enough to tile the floor the same as the rest of the house. The tiling workmanship in the bathroom was exceptionally poor and in the construction process, many got broken or were loose and had to be replaced. This didn't matter though because our plan was the paint all the tiles in the bathroom all along. Our colour choices of Zanzibar (a dark brown) and Light Stone (an almost pastel grey) matched the rest of the house and kitchen perfectly and went along really well with the earthy slate-like tiles we chose for the front of the bath and the shower floor. One of our most important requests was that the shower should have a linear drain with a a normal bath-type drain that would fit a plug - so much easier to stick a plug into a drain to fill up enough water to soak the shower floor when you want to clean it. Initially we wanted to have a solid frameless glass panel and matching door sitting on the now knee-high wall separating the shower and bath, but when we discovered the cost of having this custom made (it's quite a long wall so standard sizes won't fit) we decided to rather go for framed glass. Furthermore, we figured that a door would not actually be necessary if we move the shower head around (thereby spraying away from the door) so we ended up with just a glass panel on top of the wall - less surface area to clean and less place where mildew can collect. Preparing the tiles for painting took a lot of time as the glazed surface had to be lightly sanded and then washed with sugar soap before applying a special tile primer and two coats of topcoat. For the fixtures we decided on a shower head attached to a hose to give you more reach in the shower. In the bath we added a diverter and shower hose as well and in the basin, a long swivel spout. Instead of very expensive granite or marble, we chose to make the basin top of wood, and then tile that using our slate-like tiles as well. As the tall cupboard gave us a lot of extra space we didn't have before, we decided not to have a shelf under the basin - the space underneath would then not be cluttered with angle valves and U-traps and it would be an ideal space to store buckets. Finally, Daniel used old skirting coming out of the lounge to make a beautiful frame for the mirror.

Toilet
The old toilet seat hinges were damaged and we had great difficulty finding the same type. Also, during our burst pipe episode a few years ago when we decided to remove all the wall tiles in the toilet, the wall behind the cemented toilet could never be properly plastered and painted - this prompted us to take the toilet out completely and get a new one. The floor tiles also came out to be replaced by the same tiles as the rest of the house. We ringed the walls of the toilet with a single row of slate-like tiles, painted the walls Light Stone and the toilet roll holder Zanzibar

En-suite bathroom
The en-suite was already quite modern with a nice big corner bath, pedestal basin, modern toilet and a terracotta and peach colour-scheme tiles. The bath also had a diverter and shower hose but the simple addition of a higher support bracket and a shower rail, meant that we could use this bath as a shower while the old bathroom is closed for business. But getting a shower rail to fit the round corner of the bath proved problematic. After driving Middelburg flat and asking and phoning around, we eventually found an engineer who had a pipe bender and helped us bend a standard length of brass pipe. This worked perfectly and soon we had the shower going. But another problem was that the drain in this corner was one of those pop-up jobs and the chrome plating had long since corroded off in our horrible Middelburg water so this had to be replaced. No-one had ever thought that you would need access to the drain though so Daniel had to break tiles and bath wall to do this. We asked him to build an access panel afterwards rather than re-doing the wall and tiles - just in case we had to reach the drain again in future.

Study
It wasn't part of our original plans but having had a decent desk top and shelving made for my bedroom by my Dad when I was still at school, made me relish the idea of having this done properly again. It wasn't easy though - the long wall where our desks stood is longer than any length of chipboard we could find locally so we had to split the top and shelves in the middle to get it done. Daniel welded proper steel brackets instead of us buying the flimsy stuff you get in the shops and after a fair bit of struggle, managed to fit in the shelves and desktop, spanning the entire length of the study wall. Our modular sets of drawers fit perfectly underneath and finally we managed to get all of our books into one room.

Lounge
Ideally we would've liked to use the same tiles in the lounge as the rest of the house. The previous owner left some behind but there was just not enough for the lounge and obviously no way we would ever find the same ones again. Luckily, the lounge is a step down from the rest of the house, so using different tiles would not be that obvious - it also meant we could freely use the tiles in the toilet and bathroom where it was much more important to match up. We chose a lighter grey patterned tile and together with the Light Stone paint on the walls, made the lounge feel cooler and more airy. Nicola's pet project/idea was to have a display cupboard for all the brick-a-brack we've collected over the years and that's been hidden away in cupboards to protect it from the cats. Luckily we had one pine shelf set that already had backing and was properly built and in good condition. Daniel added a few smaller shelves in-between the main ones and then built two neat door frames with glass panels, decorating them with an antique-looking set of door knobs and lock cover. Lastly he also used a few brackets to stabilize the tall cupboard as well as our DVD shelves against the walls. The cats love jumping up onto high spaces and a cat in motion on a top-heavy shelf, could've spelled disaster.

Other rooms
The sewing room, guest bedroom and hiking room each got one of the loose-standing shelves put up against the wall. In the hiking room, Daniel added a pole underneath the hanging shelf for our backpacks to hang and then welded neat looking S-hooks for the packs and hangers for the sleeping bags,

Store room
We had a lot of paint left over from the house so the store room and outside toilet got painted too in addition to the ceilings being fixed and sealed. There was also a can of floor paint left over by the previous owner and this went onto both rooms' floors as these were just raw concrete before.

Outside
Just outside the kitchen we had a concrete basin with a set of really decrepit taps that's given us lots of headaches over the years. Using the old (but still pretty decent looking) taps from the old bath, Daniel re-did the plumbing completely and utilizing one of my brain waves, converted the two separate taps into a proper hot/cold mixer! He added another slate-like tile covered top next to the sink, which was also scraped and re-painted. Our main side gate has been falling apart for quite some time - unfortunately the biggest problem is the thin, poorly built wall it's attached to that's creating most of the troubles but unfortunately there wasn't time to fix this. Daniel welded up a broken section of the gate so that at least it could swing better, and then also replaced sun-dried and damaged window putty all around the house.

Other
The toilet, bathroom, passage, hiking room, guest bedroom, sewing room and lounge were all painted Light Stone. An old pin board was painted and framed, the collapsing shelf under the kitchen sink was removed, the floor replaced and properly supported to carry the weight of our water filter, and the filter itself was fit against the wall of the cupboard, rather than lying down. All the built-in cupboard frames and doors were painted Light Stone and all doors that were scraping anywhere were taken down and skimmed. One pull-out cupboard in the kitchen had worn-out runners and another's door had worn-out hinges - these were all replaced. The second-hand coffee table I've had for over ten years now had really started looking dismal - an off-cut piece of chipboard was edged neatly and used to replace the table's top - looking as good as new!

It was a lot of work and took a solid two months but it was absolutely worth it. I would highly recommend making use of my brother's services if you want something done properly. Having also had contractors at my house for other jobs I can vouch first-hand that Daniel's workmanship is of a quality head-and-shoulders above the rest. He's now moved back to Cape Town to re-establish his business, Altemit Cupboards so anyone in the area that needs something done, feel free to contact him on 081-811-2488 or mail him at altemitcup@gmail.com