After the Cape’s drought crisis, rain is always a welcome sight.
Even when we get too much of it!
It can rain like out of buckets, with thick heavy raindrops pelting down like the clouds ripped open. The pouring rain blurs your vision like a waterfall curtain and everything is instantly soaked wet.
All the water from the roof and the terrace flows into the garden.
This piece of glass excavated from our garden can tell a story.
I love excavating things that have enough information on them to date them.
Amongst the endless amount of glass shards buried in our garden, I do find every now and then an intact bottle or a piece of glass with some inscription on it.
This small piece of the bottom of a bottle reads “Harveys Bristol”.
South African 1952 Silver Threepence (Tickey) (1937 to 1952), King George VI series. As per Professional Coin Grading Service: The obverse design: Head of King George VI. Inscription: “GEORGIVS VI REX”. Designed by Henry Paget (“HP”).1952 George VI South African Silver Threepence. As per the PCGS: The reverse design: A Protea (National Flower), in full bloom, forms the center of the design. An inverted triangle surrounds it. The sides of the triangle consist of three bundles of four sticks each. The three bundles denote the coin’s value and the sticks represent the four provinces of the Union of South Africa (Transvaal, Cape, Orange Free State, and Natal). Inscription “SOUTH AFRICA” to the left, the date at top center, “SUID-AFRIKA” to the right and “3p”, flanked by two little flowers to the left and right, at the bottom center. Reverse design artist: Kruger Gray (“K” to the left and “G” to the right of the flower’s stem).
The 3 pence coin is also known as the “Tickey” in South Africa.
Even though the tickey was only around until 1960, after which the British currency was replaced by the Rand, the word stuck in South African vocabulary.
I painted this bathroom door myself and love the result.
When our builder’s workers started applying the primer on our interior doors while they were still hanging, I knew this would end badly.
So I decided to save some costs and paint the doors myself. It couldn’t get worse than how it had been done so far.
Of course I knew nothing about painting doors, so I first had to do my research which I’m happy to share:
Good Practices for Painting Interior Doors
1) Lay down the door flat on saw horses
Painting a new interior door is easiest on saw horses:
– Only when the door is removed from the frame can you reach all the edges. Especially new doors need to be sealed everywhere to prevent moisture from entering – that includes the bottom edge.
– Only when the door is lying flat down can you achieve a smooth streak-free paint finish. It is easy to miss drips and runs leaving unsightly paint marks on your door. Plus you’ll avoid any mess on the walls and floors.
If the door is already installed, take it off for painting. Interior doors are hollow and easy to remove from the hinges.
2) Clean the door
Make sure there is no residue or grime on the door that would spoil the paint.
Wipe the door clean with soapy lukewarm water.
3) Sand down the door
If new or old, before painting you need to roughen up the surface.
Use a sanding block for profiled moldings and sandpaper on flat boards to smoothen any irregularities.
Clean up the dust with a vacuum or brush and damp cloth.
4) Fix any holes
Should the door have any holes, cracks or scratches, fill them before applying any primer or paint.
5) Dampen the surface
This trick is meant to help you achieve a smooth paint finish:
Wet the door’s surface slightly with a sponge or cloth.
When applying paint on the damp surface, it’ll take longer to dry, giving you more time to smoothen out any unwanted streaks or tears.
6) Prime the door
New doors need to be primed to ensure good adhesion of the finish coats. Already painted doors need no primer if they’re in good condition.
Apply one coat of primer and let it dry.
Sand down any irregularities.
7) Paint the door
The best way to avoid brush marks is by avoiding using brushes. Only paint the tricky parts like edges and ornamental designs with brushes.
Use a foam roller on all straight surfaces for an even looking finish. You might need to apply an extra coat, if the foam roller spreads the coat too thin.
Apply as many layers of paint as needed for a great finish. If you can still spot some irregularities, give it one more coat. It actually goes quick and will leave you truly happy with the result.
Look what I excavated from our garden: A vintage Mother of Pearl button
The excitement of excavating something shiny when cleaning up the garden soil from rubble and debris!
I gave this Mother of Pearl button a rinse and it’s gleaming in the sun.
According to Vintage Button Emporium this nacre button is even worth something, like a pound or two. It is the rim that makes it more valuable than just a plain version. Craftsmanship is always worth something.
Interestingly, this button seems to have been fastened with a metal noose, which is still attached to it. So was it part of some sort of uniform maybe?
If you know more about The Broken Palace or the people who lived there and what happened that we’re digging up so many artefacts. please get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de 🙂
Metal bits and bobs that I find plentiful in our garden soil.
These are the contents of only one hole.
You might think I excavated this over time.
Far from that: The dogs start digging and I start collecting. This is the result of only one of their digging holes. I don’t even know what half of these things are.
The metal bits sit compacted on top of each other. Like parts of a house that has collapsed and been buried.
In a matter of one session of removing all items from the ground that could pose a danger to digging puppy paws, this is what I collect. Besides gazillions of nails and other unidentifiable scrap metal.
What happened to The Broken Palace that once stood here? Are these the remains? How come this never got cleared up? If you know more, kindly get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de
It doesn’t take long to dig out a variety of nails from our garden.
This is the reason why I start excavating when our dogs start digging: Rusty nails.
They are everywhere in the ground of our garden. When the dogs are digging, I have to extract the nails, preferably before the dogs even reach them. Who knows where they come from, but best to get rid of them before they come too close to any soft dog paws.
Only one hole dug by the dogs contains a variety of numerous nails making me wonder how it came to be that The Broken Palace was destroyed.
From masonry nails to tiny screws, from bolts to cut clasp nails to staple fasteners, this is a collection of pretty much every nail type there is. So how did all of these come to be in our ground?
If you know more about The Broken Palace please get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de 🙂
The more surprising when it’s still intact and traceable: I’m always amazed that it is still possible to excavate entirely intact bottles. After removing the garden soil with a digger back to ground level, hacking at the clay earth to loosen it up, and dogs digging up the rest:
How amazing that this vial didn’t break. And it’s sealed! With something inside! 😮
It is even possible to read the pressed imprint of the manufacturer’s signature: Heynes Mathew Ltd.
Now, there’s something to research! And it comes up with results, even with dates:
Extract from The Cape Town Guide (1897) p139:
“Heynes, Mathew & Co. – This firm so widely know throughout South Africa was established in Cape Town at the beginning of the century. Their operations increased so rapidly that they found it necessary a year or two ago to construct new premises, and these are now amongst the most attractive in Cape Town. Heynes Mathew & Co.’ Building is six stories high, and is situated at the corner of Adderly and Longmarket Streets. The first floor is let to various tenants, but the remainder of the building is devoted to the requirements of their large business. They manufacture numerous specialities for their trade, and are agents also for many remedies which have a world-wide reputation.”
I excavated this from our garden. What could it be?
After excavating what appears to be a door knocker, I thought I had dug out a door bell next.
Wondering why you’d want both – maybe the people at The Broken Palace were especially hospitable – I’d better double check.
As I started researching my find I quickly realised things didn’t add up. The mechanism of a push button door bell would look very different:
This ‘original art deco vintage wooden electric door bell push press button’ looks similar to my garden excavation, but when it’s opened up to show the mechanism, it’s clear that this doesn’t match up.
In contrast:
Instead there are three prongs sticking out at the backside similar to the Australian thee pin plug:
This ‘black 3 pin extension lead AU/NZ plug top’ looks quite similar to my find.
In comparison:
So maybe this is an antique cord plug for lamps or fans like these:
These antique replica mid-century plugs look quite like my excavation.
Quite a resemblance:
However, the shape of the three pins is quite different. Some similar looking plugs refer to ‘early’ electric style, so maybe this is what plugs used to look like in South Africa in the early days of electricity?
If you know what this could be, or have references to antiques in South Africa, or remember The Broken Palace, please get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de 🙂
Our new garden design: Chillout area with braai at the back.
Progress in our garden is slow: There’s still so much fixing going on around the house, that our backyard is mostly abused as a storage facility.
So when finally the east wall got done, we had some extra space freed up to move the concrete blocks.
And the rest was left to play:
Like tending to a zen garden, an empty space is quite inviting to be reflective and creative.
The first time the concrete blocks turned into an interactive group seating area:
Now the concrete blocks form a centre piece, as the garden work will continue along the garden wall. They cover quite a bit of ground, which will prevent dust being blown around. And they stretch out like a giant sofa, an outdoor lair, complete with backrest and bird bath. And of course, the braai at the back:
With water restrictions plans for our garden are changing, so let’s see what the next giant lego reshuffle will look like. 🙂
Digging stuff out from our garden: What could this be?
With a new puppy in our home, we got a new force for digging at work. Gigi has reached that stage, where digging is the coolest thing ever.
Luckily our garden is not yet done and our dogs can dig as much as they like. In fact, they’re actually helping us: With the clay ground it’s super hard labour and with an entire house buried in our backyard, there’s still plenty to excavate. So wherever you dig, you’re bound to dig something up.
Our handshower did everything for us: dishes, dogs, rugs, clothes…
Decisions, decisions!
Do we need a bath, isn’t that just a water waster? Should we have the shower in the bath or stand-alone? And if we go for a separate shower cubicle, can we at least have a handshower in the bath tub?
The handshower it is, and thank goodness!
Who would’ve thought we end up with this one handshower as the only water point in the entire house besides the showers, meaning we washed our hands, did our dishes, brushed our teeth, all with this one handshower.
Turns out also my mum ended up doing the dishes in their bath tub when they got a new kitchen.
So this is just another one of those bizarre experiences that weirdly enough some people you’d never expected share with you and totally understand what you’re going through.
Marked “CGCB Jurbise, Made in Belgium” this tile could be close to 100 years old.
According to The Antique Floor Company:
CGCB is the inscription for the Compagnie Générale de la Céramique du Batiment (commonly shortened to Cerabati), a period ceramic tile producer which were an amalgamation of some of the older companies in Paray-le-Monial, Bourgogne and other usines around France.
As per Mario Baeck‘ doctoral thesis “The Flourishing of Belgian Ornamental Tiles and Tile Panels in the Art Nouveau Period”:
In addition to these floor tile factories there were a few earlier established factories, which made fireproof fireplace tiles, floor quarries and tiles for other forms of heavy use, such as the S.A. de Produits Réfractaires et Céramiques de Baudour and Utzschneider, Jaunez et Cie in Jurbise, established in 1876 by Charles Michelet.
As researched for GR-Atlas all these different factories united under one name in 1921:
En 1921, les différentes usines de la société Utzschneider et Edouard Jaunez deviennent La Compagnie Générale de la céramique de bâtiment ou Cerabati.
It also states that due to difficulties this factory closed in 1985:
Cependant, dans les années 1980, le site connaît des difficultés et l’usine ferme définitivement en 1985.
So this tile could date back as far as 1921, but it is definitely from before 1985. Even if it’s not antique that still makes it vintage.
Was this maybe a tile in the fire place of The Broken Palace? And was it common practice to use imported tiles from Europe?
If you know more about Woodstock’s unique history, please get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de
One of the tiles we found in our garden dates back to 1901 – 1911.
Marked “De Baudour, Oscar Gerard, Directeur” on the inside, and “Ste ANme de Produits Refractaires & Ceramiques” around the outside of the circular emblem.
As per iCollector.com: De Baudour opened as a pottery factory in southern Belgium in 1842 under Francois Declercq. Oscar Gerard was Director from 1901 to 1911, dating these tiles to that time period.
The question is when did these tiles make it to South Africa?
Could this be a time reference? Was it maybe in the 1950s that The Broken Palace got destroyed? If you know more, please get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de 🙂
The U.S. Forest Service did some research on ‘Wood Finishing: Water Repellents and Water-Repellent Preservatives’, pointing out:
“Homeowners can avoid many exterior wood-finishing problems by first treating with a WR or WRP solution to guard against damage to the wood and paint caused by water and by decay and stain fungi (mildew).
WR or WRP treatment of wood is recommended both before painting and also as a natural finish for wood.”
and concludes in their PDF ‘Water Repellents and Water-Repellent Preservatives for Wood’:
“Water-repellent preservatives can be used as natural finishes and can greatly improve the durability and appearance of wood exposed outdoors.
They can also be used as pretreatments prior to the initial painting of wood. The water repellent improves the dimensional stability of the wood, and the preservative improves the mildew resistance of the paint. These properties work in concert to extend the service life of the paint.”
So as long as we’re using water repellent preservatives that are paintable, we can start with the WRP wood treatment, and still apply paint later.
While this still doesn’t answer the question for us, it gets us a step closer! 😛
Cement Burns right at the tip of my fingers… Ouch!
There are still some snags around the house that we’re bit by bit attending to.
The other day we made good progress again, when plastering the remaining exposed brick work.
But when, after having asked already to finish the job nicely, I saw that there were still some gaps that had not been plastered shut, I took it upon myself to deal with it:
Being overly proactive, I thought: Let me just quickly smooth out the plaster and fill the corners properly.
Being highly perfectionist, it didn’t go as quickly as I had hoped.
Being totally absorbed by the task at hand, I did not feel any pain at first.
While dry cement is calcium oxide and relatively harmless to the touch, it turns toxic when wet:
As the cement is eating through your skin, you only feel the real pain when the outer layer has breached. Now the cement reacts with the water coming out from your wounds. At this point it gets difficult to simply wash off the plaster, as the chemical reaction progresses:
Dry cement is also dangerous when inhaled as dust in large quantities: Prolonged or repeated exposure can lead to a disabling and often fatal lung disease called silicosis.
Stay clear from any health hazards caused by cement.
Always wear the correct safety gear:
– overalls with long sleeves and full-length trousers
Looking at what lies beneath to find the cause for the crack reveals two colliding walls.
What to consider when building a new wall onto an old wall
1) Foundation: The new wall must sit on the same level foundation as the old wall.
“Where no foundations exist the new wall will not be on solid footings and will sag or crack. A single wall no higher than 1.8 metres requires a 300mm deep x 300mm wide footing, while a double wall, or a wall higher than 1.8 metres should be 600mm deep x 300mm wide.”
“The success of a join in the wall without any cracking still lies in the foundation, however. Any movement of the foundation will result in a crack in the wall. Proper compaction of the new area before digging foundations is important. Alternatively, dig down to solid ground before laying the foundation. There is no short way to do it properly.”
When tying new extension walls to an existing building it is important that the cavity is maintained. This means cutting into the existing walls to continue the cavity around the building.”
3) Joint: The two walls need a joint between them. There are different types, but basically a joint is a gap between the two building parts.
Control Joint
“Most materials experience small changes in dimensions, due to temperature changes, moisture changes, sometimes long-term chemical changes, and loading. Dimensional changes by themselves do not necessarily cause problems, but if the movement is restrained by contact with another part of the construction which is unaffected, or behaves differently, it can result in cracking or overstressing of some elements, and possibly in structural failure.
The usual way of combating relative movements is to provide control joints, which are capable of opening or closing to a certain extent while continuing to provide the structural and enclosure functions of the element.
Movement of the foundations will also cause relative movement of parts of the construction, and is sometimes compensated by the provision of control joints, but this is a different type of movement and its magnitude is more difficult to predict. This is known as articulated masonry, and can be useful for constructing small buildings on relatively unstable sites.
Control joints are by definition a discontinuity in the wall, and thus they reduce the amount of support given to one part of the wall by the remainder of it, or by the building’s frame. In many cases it will be necessary to use sliding wall-ties to transmit some support across the joints.
The joints also must be sealed to maintain the integrity of weatherproofness, acoustic and fire isolation.”
“Unlike control joints, expansion joints are left completely free of mortar. They are filled with an electromatic sealant to keep them free from water.”
“Brick is the smallest dimension it will be in its long service life when it leaves the kiln. As it is exposed to moisture from a variety of sources including the air, wet mortar, rain and condensation, it will naturally expand since it is a clay product. Temperature will also cause brick to expand and contract. Consequently, it is important to incorporate expansion joints into brickwork to accommodate this movement. Expansion joints should be located where stresses or cracks are likely to develop in brickwork. Prime candidates for expansion joints include long expanses of walls, corners, offsets, setbacks, and parapets.”
“Slip joints are designed to take movement on a load bearing structure such as corbel/slab and brick interfaces where a low friction sliding interface is required. They ensure that the load transfer is correctly through the centre of the horizontal joint thus eliminating any chance of fretting at the edge due to the rotation of the slab. Live load deflection of the slab by means of settlement of adjacent columns/walls and piers is also diminished. Applied in a continuous length they are ideal for both reinforced and post-tension slabs in car parks, shopping centers, airports, hotels and recording studios.”
“Toothing-in or Toothing-out involves hacking away every other brick in the main building at the point you want to join the extension wall to and then make a seamless connection from the main building with the house extension. For this to be possible, the builder needs to build with the exact brick size and for the bricks to be perfectly aligned with the existing building when constructing the extension.”
“Toothing of the masonry is not permitted in many architectural specifications. Why does toothing provide less strength than raking or stepping back the masonry wall?
Toothing is not as strong because of the difficulty involved in properly filling and compacting the mortar for the full depth of the head and bed joints. Much of the mortar at the tooth portion of the wall must be installed by pointing the joints, and it is difficult to point the mortar in the back portion of the joints. As a result, these tooth joints are often poorly filled, and as a result, create a weak plane within the wall that is susceptible to cracking.
Toothing, however, is sometimes necessary when connecting to an existing wall. If the joint cannot be stepped back, providing a vertical expansion joint at such interfaces may be an alternative to toothing.
When toothing must be done, extreme care must be taken to carefully point these joints to ensure that they are completely packed with mortar for the full depth.”
“Wall ties should be flexible enough to accommodate the relative movement between both leaves of a cavity wall but stiff enough to transmit axial loads. Stainless steel wall ties should be specified.
Additional wall ties should be placed either side of the movement joint at every block course up the length of the joint and within 150mm of the joint.”
One of the many ‘excavations’ from our garden: A ladle
This ladle is only one of the many kitchen utensils we excavated from our garden: Pots, pans, can openers, mugs, cutlery…
Now, did all these kitchen tools break and were dumped decades ago in what is now our garden?
Or are all these items part of the kitchenware from The Broken Palace? But shouldn’t they then have been packed up and moved before The Broken Palace was destroyed?
It feels so curious finding these long forgotten leftovers from a house that is shrouded in hearsay.
If you know what happened to The Broken Palace, please get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de 🙂
A quick Google image search reveals that marbles really revved up over the years, have you seen modern marbles, they are amazeballs. Each one like a piece of art.
So I guess the marbles we found in our garden are a pretty good indication for a time reference: These look like from the 80’s / 90’s.
Anyone remembering playing with marbles at The Broken Palace back in the day? If so, kindly get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de 🙂
So when our builder said we’d be moving in by December, and then moved the move-in date to March, and then still did not look like he’s going to make it, we set the deadline to June. And made it very clear that we will be in, if the house is ready or not.
Of course, the house was not ready.
But we moved in anyway.
It was crazy, we literally lived on a construction site.
We had no kitchen and no water taps, no sofas and no space to sit, no cupboards or anywhere to hang clothes, not all the doors making it really very open plan. It was like doing an AfrikaBurn in our own house.
You will hear from anyone that living in the property while it’s busy being renovated / finished is a nightmare. Unfortunately you might have to face it if you want the building work to get done.
And we don’t even have a flat roof, we just have a roof walkway. But that’s the weak point, and it leaks.
Assessing the damage on the roof walkway: This is where the water accumulates and seeps through.
So when everyone rejoices that Cape Town is being blessed with rain, for us it also means we better get going to assess and sort the mess:
Of course we catch whatever water possible with buckets and pots. But most of the water runs down the wall, there’s no way to capture it besides mopping it up.
And of course we’re in the process of fixing that stretch of flat roof. But only the next rainy day will tell…
Let’s begin the puzzle work! These are ceramic pieces we excavated from our garden.
Luckily my grandma was good in passing on practical skills, such as how to puzzle!
Can you imagine that I put 6 tiles together out of the pieces we found scattered around our garden soil!
Flower Tile 1
Flower Tile 2
Flower Tile 3
Flower Tile 4
Flower Tile 5
Flower Tile 6
After decades of being buried beneath layers of building rubble, clay, soil and other rubbish, this tile is almost intact:
Is this flower tile we excavated from our garden one of the remembrances of The Broken Palace?
Do you remember this flower tile? Was it part of “The Broken Palace”? If this flower tile triggered some memories, please get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de 🙂
How can these bottles have stayed intact for decades?
Our garden soil is littered with glass shards and I’m the one who MOOP swoops them.
But every now and then I get to feel like Indiana Jones, because lo and behold, I excavate fully intact bottles.
Interesting small bottles I dug up from our garden.
Quite delicate little flasks in shapes we are not even used to seeing anymore. How can it be that they didn’t break in all these decades? What were their contents, what were they made for?
If you can remember what these bottles were used for, please get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de 🙂
Bottles we found in our garden from the good old days.
The foundation of a house that previously stood here in our garden: “The Broken Palace”
Renovating a heritage house in Woodstock comes with lots of surprises. Turns out our garden is full of them too!
Lots and lots of rubble we excavated from our garden, and this is only the work of one morning.
Loving urban gardening we can’t wait to grow our own herbs and veggies.
But the ground in our garden is not what the lush grass field might have indicated.
The original garden: What lies beneath is covered by heaps of grass.
Instead of digging up rich soil, we have to tackle the solid surface with pick axes.
Loosening up the soil in our garden is real hard work.
Beneath lies one jaw-dropping curiosity after another:
From dishes and pots and pans, to tools and screws and metal plates, to clothing, in particular shoes, also lots and lots of buttons, to entire intact bottles and lots and lots of glass shards, many many stompies,
to tiles that can be puzzled together from the broken pieces, metal roof sheeting, wooden floors, to entire bricks and even four matching columns,
to old light bulbs, coins from the 1950s, to lots and lots of bones, teeth, hair clips, marbles and other toys,
we’ve probably dug up an entire house by now, together with its contents.
So what happened here?
Neighbours tell me there once stood a house called “The Broken Palace”.
One anecdote goes that, as the naughty boys ran away from the police, they’d take a shortcut into the alleyways behind The Broken Palace. A fishing net would catch the police, as only the boys knew where to slip through.
As we’re uncovering more objects from the depths of our garden, we can only imagine the stories that took place here.
Do you remember The Broken Palace? Does any of the items we found in our garden jog some memories? If so, please get in touch: TrulyJuly@web.de 🙂
I had a shower and this is the result: Wet puppy footprints everywhere. 😉
No really, open plan is great.
Our bathroom is fully open plan. It’s a great design by The Workplace Architects and it works beautifully.
Of course the lavatory has a door, but other than that everything is freely accessible without any barrier in the way: The wet area is only divided from the main bedroom by a freestanding wall. Basin, bathtub and shower are enclosed in niches, and thus need no doors.
It makes the entire bedroom feel like a hotel suite, where you can just throw your clothes on the easy chair and simply walk into the shower as is. It is an invitation to let loose and enjoy the basics of life, unimpeded, surrounded by ergonomic functionality, everything is a flow.
But…
But of course, in a hotel suite there are hardly ever puppies or children.
With unhindered access in a completely open plan house, and the everlasting attention seeking impulse to follow or find you wherever you go, the only hiding place that remains is, ehem, the toilet.
But then again, who’d ever want to hide away from these cuties anyway. 😉
So yes, thanks to our open plan, me taking a shower means our puppy taking a shower. And tappeditapp her wet footprints are everywhere. 🙂
Dog urine can leave lawn burns from overfertilisation.
Why is dog pee harmful to vegetation?
“There are three primary reasons why dog urine burns grass: alkaline urine pH, the concentration of the urine, and its nitrogen load.” – 3 Reasons Your Dog’s Urine Kills Your Grass
“One of the primary components in dog urine that affects shrubs and other plants is urea, a type of nitrogen waste that is produced as the body metabolizes protein. Because dogs have a large protein requirement in their diets, a significant amount of urea can be produced by a healthy dog. When a dog pees on your shrubs, the urea in the urine acts as a source of nitrogen for the plant and the surrounding soil.
Nitrogen is an essential element for plant development, and in small amounts the nitrogen provided by dog urine can actually benefit your shrubs.
While shrubs need nitrogen for proper growth and development, too much nitrogen can be detrimental; it can stunt or potentially even kill the shrub.” – Will Dog Pee Kill Shrubs?
How to prevent dog pee from damaging your plants
– Protect your plants
While fencing your garden off is a bit of a harsh way to keep your dog out, raised flower beds are just as effective and have other practical benefits.
– Train your dog not to pee on the grass
“Provide an area in your yard, away from your garden, consisting of sand and soil covered in mulch or pebbles, where your dog can urinate without harming any of your plants or lawn. Plant salt-resistant greenery and grasses near this potty spot, in case it has any accidents. These plants are typically found along the coast and are more urine-resistant than other flora.” – Does Dog Pee Hurt Plants?
– Steer away from (distressed looking) plants and trees
“Of course, a dog’s gotta go when a dog’s gotta go. But when you have the option, steer Fido to a lamppost rather than a tree and a bark covered area rather than a stressed-looking lawn. You can spot stressed trees by bark that is discolored or even peeling off around the base. And trees that are under six inches in diameter or have thin bark are at higher risk.” – Why Does Dog Pee Kill Plants?
– Keep the pH in balance
“For the health of both your dog and your lawn, you should strive to keep your pet’s urine pH right around 6.5, and no higher than 7.
I recommend buying pH strips from your vet or at the local drug store to check your pet’s urine pH at home so you know when it’s in or outside the desired range. In the morning prior to feeding your dog is when you should collect the urine sample. You can either hold the pH tape in the stream of urine while your dog is voiding, or you can catch a urine sample in a container and dip the tape into the sample to check the pH.” – 3 Reasons Your Dog’s Urine Kills Your Grass
How to help your plants recover from dog pee
– Neutralise the soil
“You will need to neutralize the acid fairly quickly or your vegetables will not survive – my father’s trick was to use a few tablespoons of baking soda in a watering can and water the area.” – Is Dog Urine Bad for My Vegetable Garden?
“After your dog urinates on any plants in your yard, douse the area with water from your garden hose. A thorough rinsing of the area within eight hours of urination dilutes the urine enough to prevent damage to the plant, according to VeterinaryPartner.com. Don’t wait more than 12 hours to rinse the plants because this could actually increase the damage to the plant. Provide your dog with plenty of water to drink, which dilutes the urine even before it winds up in your garden.” – Does Dog Pee Hurt Plants?
– Treat dog urine as fertiliser
If you fertilise your lawn, take into account the overfertilisation your dog can provide and avoid fertilising these areas on top of it.
– Consider plants that like dog wee
“Selecting plants that can survive getting drenched in dog urine is a good idea around your property perimeter. Violas, columbine, lilac, ornamental grasses and a host of other plants are virtually urine proof. Make sure the border plants are not poisonous to dogs.” – How to Stop Dogs From Urinating on Plants
“Clover is highly resistant to pet urine and helps maintain a uniformly green lawn.” – Benefits of a Clover Lawn
– Grow a back-up lawn
“With a little planning, you can easily grow small “turf repair” pots in your back garden. All you need is a small plastic flower pot (3 inch is fine), fill it with some soil, either compost or garden soil, then sow a few grass seeds in the top. Give it a good water and leave it outside somewhere keeping it moist over the next week or so. When your dog has burnt a section of lawn, simply dig out the circle, drop your lawn repair pot grass into the hole and hey presto … fixed! You can set up a number of these pots next to your shed and the grass will sit happily in the pot until needed.” – Dog urine patches killing your lawn?
Old old cigarette butts we ‘excavated’ from our garden. They’ve been lingering beneath layers of soil and building rubble for decades and are not even close to decomposing.
Tossing cigarette butts is a crime
Did you know that you get fined for dumping cigarette butts?
The picture above shows old cigarette butts ‘excavated’ from our garden. This is as far as it goes for stompies: They never really disappear. The fibres in the cigarette butt are not cotton or paper, they are most likely plastic that can persist in the environment as long as other forms of plastic.
Report drivers who flick stompies out of their car window:
Call the stompie hotline control centre number on 021 424 7715.
Upload the incident on reportacrime.co.za.
A big time thanks to PETS (Pet Empowerment in Townships) who rescued her wandering the streets all by herself, giving this cutesy pup a second chance. 🙂
So yes, maybe she’s not the guard dog you’d expect, but she’s definitely the dog I didn’t know I had wished for. 😀
You know, people say Woodstock is a bad place and anyone who mentions they’re from Woodstock gets this short flicker of pity as a response before everyone chimes in how it’s up and coming… 😛
Being born and bred in Woodstock, I can only say: We’re having nothing but fun!
Here it’s still wild, you can play on the streets, you can hang on the corner, there’s always someone around and people leave their door open, so when you walk down the street you can see everyone’s corridor, like there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Things are happening here, every day is different.
But things got very different lately that we’re having a lot of upheaval with the neighbouring plot. All of the sudden all the peace and quiet is gone, and we’re disrupted by building works and general turmoil.
It used to be a peaceful place where my parents had built a shack from all the surrounding materials and because the supply was endless, they added on another room and extended the back and still had space for a nursery. Times were plentiful and we quickly grew in numbers.
So to have all this unsettled just because of some newbie neighbours who think they can make it all better was really upsetting. And while our philosophy is to stay back and let the bad smells pass (the southeaster usually takes care of things), this lot was particular obnoxious in their mission to ‘clean up the place’.
So one evening when we were enjoying just another awesome sunset with a sip of dad’s homebrew, we got an idea: Let’s just run over to the neighbour’s property, break in and poop all over the show!
And we did just that, and even took photos of it and posted them on the internet:
Check out a rat’s sure telltale sign of having taken over your space!Rat poo in every corner!
We had such a blast!
At first we were scared that someone might see us. But then we thought: So what if they see us? It’s not like they can catch us!
Once in, we had to find our orientation to figure out the best spot to place our poo. I chose the first corner from the corridor into the main landing. Like you can’t miss it! As I sat there, I let my eyes wander and realised what an awesome place this was:
There was rotten wooden beams and rusty roof sheeting scattered on the floor, perfect hiding places. There were bags of cement at the end, awesome climbing walls! And the best of it: There were holes all over the place, and just in the perfect size for us to squeeze through. Shortcuts only a rat can take!
Thrilled by having accomplished our very dangerous but effective task of showing our disgust with our new neighbours, we ran around the house, checking out every corner and nook.
We sneaked up onto each other and ended up playing hide-and-seek and catch-me-if-you-can. Just as my sister got me and was tickling me senselessly – I was laughing so hard, the metal sheeting started wobbling – we heard something!
We both froze instantaneously, but it was too late: The initial fright had made me jump and brought the metal sheeting off balance: it slipped and crashed on the floor with a bang.
“Eiiii!” we screamed in an eardrum-rupturing high pitch of fright and ran off.
But just a couple of jumps down the line we realised no-one was following us and couldn’t help ourselves but giggling from excitement all the way home.
So yeah, I love Woodstock, things are real here. 🙂
There’s a big difference between EPS and XPS when choosing polystyrene boards for insulation purposes.
Polystyrene is not like Polystyrene: There are many different uses for many different types of polystyrene.
Not all polystyrene sheets are usable for insulation.
For example, if they were made for packaging purposes, they probably don’t have many benefits for insulation.
In addition there can be safety implications: Polystyrene is highly flammable, that’s why it has been treated with flame retardants when manufactured for insulation purposes.
There are two different types used for insulation: EPS and XPS, with XPS being the much more efficient option:
EPS = Expanded Polystyrene Insulation is less dense and cheaper than the other polystyrene insulation. It is also less effective.
The size of the roof overhang depends on the property.
For example: On very tall buildings, there are hardly any benefits of roof overhangs as the surface areas of the walls are so high. But roof overhangs are a great system to protect houses 3 stories and under.
To calculate the staircase, it’s important to take accurate measurements of the stairs. Here Christian is measuring correctly the total rise of the stairs from the bottom of the first floor to the top of the second floor.
As if counting stairs wasn’t tricky enough, let’s look at how to measure them. 🙂
Definition of stairs
Stairs are a series of steps on a stringer that lead from one level or floor to another.
A step consists of a
– tread, the top surface of a step or stair, and a
– riser, the vertical section between the treads of a staircase.
The stringer is the inclined beam that supports the steps, quasi the backbone of the stairs.
Sometimes the tread overhangs the riser to create more space for feet, this is called nosing.
How to measure stairs
You measure the total rise of a staircase from the bottom of the first floor to the top of the second floor.
Note: Ensure this measurement goes to the top of the second floor, not to the bottom of it. Remember from ‘How to count stairs‘ that the staircase includes the landing, so the last step up onto the landing is the last stair to count. Accordingly the height of the stairs reaches to the top of the last stair, the last tread. It is easy to forget calculating in the last tread as it often continues into the landing and as such is not visually separated as a stair.
The total run is measured from the first riser to the last riser.
This is pretty straightforward and also helps when counting stairs: The number of risers is equal to the number of steps.
As you look at the staircase, each part that goes up vertically is a riser. The first riser starts on the bottom floor and connects to the first tread. The last riser starts on the second-last tread and reaches up to the top landing, which is the last tread.
Note: The nose has no impact on the total run or the tread depth. However, when you’re looking to lay carpet on your stairs, you need to calculate the nosing in.
Protecting our East wall from damp turns out to be a challenge: The ground level in this service lane sits higher than our house. Also there’s an interesting sewage system from our neighbour.
Living on Table mountain’s slope anywhere in Cape Town probably means your property gets very wet during winter: Not only can it rain like out of buckets, the water masses coming down from the mountain also need to go somewhere.
To avoid damp problems arising every winter, prevention is key: Waterproofing is only half job. – Water needs to be diverted away from your house, and ample ventilation needs to be provided for moisture to evaporate.
In dense city areas, where buildings sit right on their boundary walls, there is not always space for sufficient drainage. Building into the mountain slope can mean having a higher ground level sitting right against your house wall. This is a continuous source of humidity and will cause rising damp.
As a solution the ‘French Drain’ pops up. There’s a lot to learn about French drains, so here a list of some helpful resources:
Bad idea: Not only is this washing machine noisy in an open plan kitchen / living area, it’s also sitting on cheap laminate that looks ugly very quickly if there’s any leakage.
In most cases’ scenario, you move into your new home and have little option where to put your washing machine, as the connection points are already provided.
However, when you build your own house, you get to build around wherever you want to put your washing machine.
But with great power comes great responsibility, or, in our case, with many choices come many decisions.
So where is the best place to put your washing machine?
These two factors leave for me only one logical conclusion:
The bathroom.
Even in an open plan house the bathroom is behind closed doors and since we’re most likely to be least often in the bathroom, a noisy washing machine is of no bother there.
A bathroom is generally tiled and thus equipped for water overflows.
Often houses have the washing machine in the kitchen. This is understandable if the bathroom cannot accommodate it, e.g. because it’s too small.
But our washing machine will sit in the downstairs bathroom, built-in so it’s proper silent at all times. Enclosed in tiles, so no leakage can come as a bad surprise.
There you go: a washing machine hassle free home. 🙂
Our entrance step is 300mm deep. Testing with different sized feet. 🙂
Thanks to my bad knee I developed a mild form of climacophobia, the fear of climbing stairs.
Any dodgy looking free floating staircase and I immediately freeze, knowing my knee can’t be relied upon to master any slippery slope.
So now that we’re building our own house, we get to define our own staircase, too and I’m wondering: What is the ideal spec for stairs?
I know from our structural engineer the standard spec according to the South African Building Regulations:
Depth: 250mm – the width of treads must be at least 250mm
Height: 200mm – single step risers shouldn’t be more than 200mm
But with only a depth of 25cm, already a shoe size bigger than 6 / 39 doesn’t fit flat on the step. So our plans suggest 300mm deep steps.
I guess I’ll have to be more conscious about climbing stairs and take note of those I prefer most.
What’s your favourite staircase? And what size are those steps?
Heavy rains caused our new foundation trenches to fill up like a moat around a castle.
The South-Easter, Cape Town’s (in)famous wind, hauled this past weekend with rain pouring down like out of buckets, causing our flat to flood. Or, as I try to euphemise it: Adorning our living room wall with a water feature… 😉
A similar sight greeted us on site, where the rain had accumulated in the trenches and wouldn’t drain off thanks to the high amount of clay in the ground.
This somewhat turned our construction site into an adventure play ground or a giant sand castle, including moat and all.
You can see, walking across the trenches over the planks turned into a bit of a tricky but also fun thing to do: 😉
See the red dot? That is actually where our property ends. Oops!
Surprises, surprises: As our boundary beacons are established, it turns out our existing building does not match up with the boundary walls.
We’ve come a far way from the one diagram I received when buying this house. And now that we finally identify the boundary walls it turns out, it’s all askew!
But hey, this time the surprises might play in our favour. It looks like we gain some ground, even though it’s not like we can do anything with it.
The old kitchen ceiling is stripped bare, revealing beautiful original oregon pine boards. As we want to do away with those awkward stairs, we need to fill the opening with the same type of wood.
Unfortunately a lot of the original heritage components of our house had been destroyed when some badly designed ‘improvements’ were made to the building over the course of the years.
Luckily however, a lot of the resources at hand had been reused around the house. This came to light, as we stripped various parts of the 100 year old building for renovation, including the old kitchen ceiling beneath the second storey sunroom.
As we want to close up the current opening for the very awkward staircase, we need the same type of timber to complete the original flooring.
Stripping the ceiling revealed those wonderful old oregon pine planks were (ab)used to hold up the rhino board.
As all of the wood is still in good condition, we decided to not replaster the ceiling but leave it exposed. Thus, we can just use the spare floorboards.
Yeay! Instead of doing another hunt for heritage wood, we can just do the restoration with what we have. 🙂
Digging out the foundation reveals another of those surprises, surprises: There is no foundation!
I somehow thought that the hard part – that of restoring and sourcing original heritage building components – was over.
But of course, the surprises surprises! never stop: Turns out there’s no foundation!
As the back of the house gets prepared for the new construction, the foundation is excavated. Digging always seems to come with surprises around our 100 year old property: This time we were surprised to find no foundation at all beneath the old bathroom.
Well, maybe not too surprised, this is Woodstock after all. But it means the entire bathroom needs to be demolished.
Somebody seriously just plopped an extra room on the ground. Or, worse even, as the toilet was traditionally outside of the property grounds, we assume they might have just built the bathroom around it. 😉
So excited to see our building plans printed out for real! 🙂
It took us over a year just to get all the signatures on our building plans.
And while they were final all along, they’re only final final once you hold the finally approved plans black on white on a piece of paper, properly printed, in your hands – for reals! 🙂
With the building walls being all shaky – 100 years ago they used clay instead of cement and by now it deteriorated so much, it crumbles under the slightest touch – it wasn’t clear if and how much of the entrance wall we would be able to take out.
The whole idea of moving the entrance forward is based on knocking down the wall to the old living room and turning it into an open office space.
A variety of colours: Different pieces of walls that have been demolished around the house.
I know there’s still a lot of time until the moment comes to make this decision.
But I’m not sure I’ll be better off then than now: Because I haven’t got a clue what colour to paint our house!
So in the meantime, I take note of what the house used to look like. With layers of brick, plaster, wallpaper, paint, it’s possible to peel back time and find new colours beneath.
But of course, the decision remains difficult, as it looks like this house had all sorts of different colours throughout the 100 years of its existence.
Finally this abandoned plot is cleaned up and back to ground level.
It took the combined efforts of the neighbouring property owners to finally clean up the abandoned plot in between them:
Over the years this abandoned property caused a lot of trouble for the neighbouring houses, as the risen ground level meant damp in the building walls. Plus, any site that is not maintained invites dumping.
The abandoned plot’s earth is up to 1,5m above ground level. The resulting dampness in the neighbouring property walls is causing damage. The rubbish is unsightly, too.
Our neighbour put in some effort to clean up the excess earth and build a french drain.
The neighbour is tackling the abandoned property. This is not easy and requires proper construction work.
Nevertheless a lot of work needs to be done: The abandoned plot is still not down to ground level. The ground turns out to be so hard, it requires pickaxe and jackhammer. But it needs to be cleaned up, as it will always cause damp in the walls it touches.
There’s still a layer of hard clay earth that needs to be removed. The dogs at the back show that the earth behind the vibracrete wall is still about 1,5m above ground level.
Finally, the abandoned plot is down to ground level. It’s possible to see that there used to be a walkway, maybe an old service lane? And we unearthed some sort of previous building’s remains.
Digging up the excess earth, we excavated an old walkway and some sort of foundation and old bricks at the back.
Unfortunately the grounds behind the vibracrete wall are still bad, with excess earth burying our house almost half deep, some old building ruins, bricks, rubble and concrete, and lots and lots of rubbish that has been dumped over the years…
A bleak moment, coming to terms with this column no longer standing.
It was a tragedy bound to happen:
At long last, after a century of standing strong, in storms of weather and history, the structure finally gave in.
And it was a gentle touch that did it in the end. A mere tap sent the column flying. Falling off the wall, for the briefest moment suspended in mid-air, gliding like one of the many seabirds that circle these grounds.
Anyway, that’s what I imagine it was like, as unfortunately I missed the moment. 😉
I’m just glad that darn thing fell now, rather than later! 🙂
Hidden treasure in Woodstock: What a beautiful original oregon pine heritage door!
Renovating our 100 year old house means we need to restore it back to its original heritage look. But what exactly is that?
Especially in a neighbourhood like Cape Town’s Woodstock, a hub of craftsmanship, you see a lot of alterations to the buildings. And, as a traditionally ‘grey’ area, with the mix of cultures every house is unique, adding to the eclectic ‘Woodstock look’, an inspiring variety of styles and colours.
Unfortunately a lot of the heritage components of our house got lost and brutally replaced with some ill-fitting windows, doors and flooring.
So now that we are renovating, we need to find original victorian windows and doors. Where do you get 100 year old windows and doors from?
We were lucky with these businesses who were able to help us:
Tique specialises in the architectural salvage and restoration of wooden fixtures from the Cape Dutch and Victorian eras – doors, windows and shutters in particular.
Strippers has vast expertise in restoring hand-carved furniture, revitalising the expert workmanship of religious statues, as well as restoring large solid wooden gates, doors and windows.
Ross Demolition‘s salvage warehouses offer exceptional-quality window frames, doors, flooring, lintels, kitchen counters and other treasures salvaged from homes around the country.
Seeing double: For security reasons, we can only go ahead demolishing the old entrance once the new entrance is properly finished.
The idea is to move the current entrance forward and open up the first room – the old living room – to turn it into an office.
For security reasons it is easiest to first build the new entrance and, once it is properly lockable, demolish the old entrance.
To get going we needed a new – old doorframe. New, because we couldn’t reuse the old one, and old, because to go with the Woodstock heritage regulations, we have to restore the front facade to its original look.
In order to build up two storeys at the back of the house, we have to level the ground. Over the years the ground level in the back garden has risen and we have to remove all the excess earth. Two truck loads!
Things are getting serious when this digger arrives on site.
And yet again we have suprises, suprises: Looks like there was some kind of foundation at the back of the property before. The digger is having a tough job breaking through rubble and removing it.
It’s like being on a proper construction site with these machines maneuvering around. 🙂
Yupp, the things that happen: For Biscuit Mill Market lots of people come to Woodstock and park all over the place. One of them apparently in our house. 😦
Watch the wall getting fixed:
Watch the hole in the wall getting repaired:
One of those surprises: Turns out we have to open up the side of the building, as someone drove into it and caused serious damage, letting water creep into the brickwork, making it all crumbly and loose. All the old and damp bricks have to be replaced to ensure this wall can be standing another 100 years.
This doesn’t look like much, but thanks to this ‘dent’ in our house, we had to tear open the whole wall.
With plaster and paint coming off, the house reveals: It was at some point in the past pink! 🙂
Beneath all the layers of paint and plaster it looks like at some point in its 100 year long lifespan our house was pink! Somehow I find this reassuring. 🙂
On the back of the Tribe Coffee menu: This map led me to success!
As a European, if I need to find out something I turn to the internet.
In South Africa, if you manage to overcome absurd hurdles such as:
Connection issues
Cost issues
Data issues
Speed issues
Then you’re faced with a Google search result of: very little. And then half of the information is outdated.
So, internet is often not really an option.
Instead, word of mouth rules.
You got to get up close and personal and hit the streets.
For our victorian house renovations I needed a heritage window. Just another item of my long list of ‘challenges for the day’: Where to get a 100 year old window?
I got on my bicycle and rode down the road, popping into every shop that I thought might stock or know where to get what I need.
I learned a great deal about renovations, wood, heritage, styles. It was like a big puzzle where you first had to uncover the puzzle pieces. With every person I talked to another blank got filled in, somewhat completing a bigger picture.
I also learned that the craftsmanship of working with wood is literally dying out. So even if I do find a window, who is around to restore it?
It was only with a little luck that I got the info I was after:
After a meeting at Tribe Coffee, Jake greeted me with his friendly ‘How are you?’ and I told him about my quest, searching like a detective for a victorian window.
He knew a shop, but not the name of it, so he drew me the map in the picture above.
And indeed it led me to success!
The X marks The Junction Hotel, in which Tique has set up shop. If you like antiques, but like, the real stuff, then this is a place to visit. They had exactly the victorian window we needed, beautifully restored to its original look.
So, get out there and talk to people, you never know where help might come from. 🙂
As the third column falls, it is only the beam across on top that holds the columns up.
Over night our beam got stolen.
It’s not just that it’s ours and can we please just keep our things, thank you very much.
And it’s not that we have to keep it and restore it, because our house is heritage and every piece of original wood helps.
And it’s not that by taking away the beam there was a significant risk that the column, which it stabilised, could have fallen and now we glance up at it every day and pray it holds up.
No, it actually is the person who buys this piece of wood. Without a buyer, there wouldn’t be this petty crime.
So my husband went from shop to shop until he found the beam. They had paid R150 for it. Which goes at a loss for the shop now, as the least they can do is give back the stolen goods.
Seeing double: As the entrance door moves forward to give more space to the front room, we’ve got two doors now! Oh yes, and notice the missing beam?
It is exciting and frightening at the same time to see your house being stripped to the bare essentials.
Very necessary indeed to find all the hidden damages that need repairing. Surprises waiting at every corner, each single one with its unique challenge.
Also amazing to take a deeper look beneath the surface and appreciate the history of the building.
Starting to take off the plaster from the 100 year old bricks bears some surprises. Such as: no lintel above this window!
Today we found out that the front window has no proper lintel and are wondering how the wall is still standing… Surprises surprises! I guess the next couple of months won’t get boring. 🙂
Taking a look up close doesn’t make it any better: Still no lintel stretching over this side of the window!
Renovating a 100 year old house in Woodstock brings some treasures to light: 100 year old wallpaper
As we ‘excavated’ 100 year old wallpaper beneath all the layers of plaster and paint, we took a moment to appreciate the craftsmanship of the people who 100 years ago built this house and it’s still standing.
Well, just! With lintels missing above windows and beams stolen off columns, there’s a big portion of good luck involved in keeping this house upright. 🙂
Moneymarketinguru Reviews is a website that gives honest reviews on products that will help you grow your online business in the make money online business.
It’s all Chinese to me: What’s the best spec for a roof overhang? One thing is clear from this Chinese temple: The more the merrier! 😉
