I decided to renovate our living / braai area. It wasn’t functional as the layout made it impossible to use it as an indoor/ outdoor area to the pool; furthermore, the bar area also wasn’t used optimally, and it became an eyesore due to it becoming a place to ‘dump’ stuff. We had to keep the curtains closed to prevent the sun from burning the couch, which happened in any case.

The idea was to change the layout, modernise it, and make sure the space can be used as an indoor/outdoor living area leading to the pool.

Some of the big jobs can be seen as maintenance that we had to do anyway, e.g. replacing blinds, replacing sliding doors, replacing the couches. We also reused the upper cupboards of the old bar area.

We managed to save money by repurposing the bulk of the old bar area woodwork; we painted the braai ourselves with paint we had used on the roof, and we also repurposed and sanded down an old side table that we received as a gift.

The original budget was R200 000, but with these savings we managed to spend less.