House in Franschhoek

The brief

The house was solid but dated. Old tiled floors, worn carpets, timber doors and windows past their best, and built in joinery and bathrooms that no longer suited the way the owners wanted to live. The brief was a full interior renovation. Keep the structure, replace almost everything else, and lift the whole house to a calm, natural, high quality finish throughout.

What we did

We ran the project as a full strip out and rebuild of the interior.

• Doors and windows. We removed the existing timber doors and windows and replaced them with new aluminium units, for cleaner lines and far less maintenance.
• Floors. We lifted the old tiled finishes and carpets, laid new sandstone floor tiles through the main living areas, and put down new carpets where the owners wanted softness underfoot.
• Joinery, bathrooms and fittings. Every piece of built in joinery, all the sanitary ware and the old fittings came out, and we supplied and installed new joinery, bathrooms and fittings throughout.
• The kitchen. We installed timber mock beams across the kitchen ceiling, which gives the room its warmth and a sense of age that ties the whole house together.
• Walls and finishes. We painted the house inside and out, and finished the internal walls in Pandomo, a seamless hand applied plaster that gives the rooms their soft, tactile character.

The details that make it

The Pandomo walls are the quiet hero, a continuous soft finish with no seams to catch the eye, changing with the light through the day. The sandstone floors ground the house in the Winelands and wear in beautifully over time. The timber beamed kitchen is the heart of the home, where the new joinery, natural stone tops and beamed ceiling come together. And the new aluminium glazing opens the rooms to the garden and the light while keeping the maintenance low.

The result

The house went from a dated interior to a warm, natural, hard wearing home that suits how its owners actually live. The materials were chosen to age well, the finishes were done by hand where it counts, and the house now reads as calm and considered from the front door to the last bathroom.