The Story behind the Roundhouse.

Elna's father Wikus is a builder and had bought a plot of land some time ago. He had planned to build a house with features similar to the Round Houses in the Karoo. The design was a 2 storey house which was round on the front with a square back and a double garage. He then decided to sell the plot and work on other projects. After seeing the plans for the house and the plot we decided to buy the plot and design a Guesthouse based on his original idea. Dave re-drew the plans on the computer and worked in the evenings at home until the early hours each morning for 3 months. After much change and redesign the final design was chosen. Dave then built a 3D model of the plans and showed Elna's father (The builder).

This was much fun as this was a totally new experience for them being able to design a place from scratch. We designed everything in the house and gave it extra special touches such as the Pine tree up the stairwell and lights in the walls illuminating the ceiling instead of ceiling lights. Even the interior and initial colours were designed on the computer.

Little did we know at the time what a stressful experience this whole building process will be! They say moving house is one of the most stressful experiences.. try building a house whilst you live in it!

The loan was agreed in the UK and we brought sent the funds across from the UK. Little were we to know that this was the same time that the Rand crashed. When we designed the project and created the business plan we based the exchange rate at 1 GBP - 10 ZAR. As it happened the currency dive bombed over the next few months and when the money was being transferred we got a favourable rate of 1GBP - 17.4 ZAR. This as you can imagine was a huge bonus. Our budget was extremely low for such a project and this bonus actually enabled us to complete the Roundhouse in the end. As everyone knows you must allow for a certain percentage over your estimated budget for the final cost and this gave us our lifeline.

We moved down from Johannesburg in March 2002. Up until then the foundations had been started and building process was well under way.

We rented accommodation until the back apartments were finished and then moved in. Living on site had it's advantages and disadvantages. It was good to be on site to oversee the building of the house but it was very stressful living on site with all of the sand and workmen everywhere. The only privacy we had was when the builders left the site at the end of the day and the sun went down.

As well as overseeing the building process we also worked hard on design ideas for the furniture. Elna is very creative with things like this and she made clothing racks to go in the rooms.

There were a few hazards along the way as you can imagine!

The design of the building made the whole process much more difficult as no one on the project had built a round house and this was a very unique shape and design. It was actually very easy to line up the internal walls as everything was referenced to the center point of the house.

The pillars were then positioned exactly in place using steel moulds and one by one the moulds were filled with concrete after careful aligning and positioning.

The deck was next. The deck boards had to be hacked to pieces due to the shape and the main headache was the shape of the Balconies. Due to the width restrictions of the plot the balconies had to be wrapped around the building starting from the sides and then tapering back in again on the other side of the building. This shape was very specific and the curve of the balconies had to be drawn from 6 different points.

The balcony shape was shaped using Asbestos board which was soaked and then curved into shape along the profile.

Then the steelwork was laid as well as the electrical conduits and plumbing.

The decks were all done by hand with manpower rather than machinery. This is the way things are mostly done in small towns in South Africa. We hired around 20 workers and they mixed and threw the concrete for the decks. We went on into the night and finally finished at 11PM.

We then had to wait a couple of weeks for the concrete to be strong enough to build on and then progressed from there. The second deck was the same as the first so this was quick and easy as we just had to repeat the ground floor process.

Then it was on to the interesting stuff, the bar and entertainment area! This was definitely the highlight of the building process as we could really appreciate the stunning views from the deck and the bar area.

One of the changes we made towards the end of the building process was to extend the staircase to the top of the building and build a 'crows nest' at the top. This provided us with unbeatable views over Gansbaai and walker bay.

The thatch guys then arrived and began their work weaving the roof together. It was amazing to watch them working at such height without any fear.

The all that was left was the painting, decorating and most importantly the lighting plus many weeks of finishing the house to our high standards before opening. We made all of our cupboards, curtains and put a real personal touch on every room in the Guesthouse. It was a very painful and exhausting experience but now we have forgotten about the pain and just have selected fond memories about this epic experience.