Last year we bought a 100-year-old house in a small town in KZN. We’ve had a few surprises, including some very cool ones like a working borehole in the large garden, which we plan to pair up with a 10KL JoJo water tank before the end of the year. Thank you, JoJo, for this awesome competition! We have had such fun, as well as some trying times, working on our house and it’s great to have the opportunity to recognise the time we have put in.

One of the not-so-nice surprises was a big damp problem in one of the rooms. So, we prioritised getting this room started ASAP. We decided to turn it into our office/study. We wanted to re-use the colourful curtains that were already there when we moved in. So, to make those work, the plan for the room evolved into something vibrant and colourful. This paired well with a painting by a friend and local artist Skinny G.

We pulled out the rotting old BICs, pulled off the peeling wallpaper, replastered two walls and lifted the carpets. When we lifted the old carpet and then chipped up the plastic tiles that were beneath it, we found what looked like blood spatters on the cement floor… Spooky!

We then painted, had the floors redone (phew), bought furniture, made our own custom light fittings, hung paintings and moved in. Our office feels way fancier than the rest of our house at the moment and we certainly aren’t scared to take video meetings!