Many of you know this already, but Thorsten and I recently bought a house in Joburg. The house is in Brixton, where we currently live, and we’re in the process of renovating the house. We plan to move in this December.

Thorsten and I in the garden of our new house in Brixton, right after the transfer went through in September.

The decision to buy this house was prompted by the arrival of Thorsten’s 16-year-old son, Timo, who moved in with us last month. While we love the little semi-detached house we’re living in now (we’re renting), it’s a bit too small for three people. We decided we wanted to expand into a house with two full bathrooms, a garden, and a cottage for my home office.

Like many South African properties, this house has a separate cottage at the back of the garden. Apparently this building was once a livestock stable.

This house purchase is also the culmination of a longer journey for me, one that began well before Thorsten and I met. I’ve been dreaming about buying a house in South Africa for years. I’ve viewed at least 100 homes for sale over the past decade, and I even put in two offers to purchase. But I struggled to actually seal the deal, for many reasons.

South Africa doesn’t have the strongest economy, and investing a huge chunk of my U.S. savings in a home here didn’t seem like a wise financial decision — at least not on paper. Other challenges included visa issues and general uncertainty about whether or not I’m really planning to stay in Joburg, a city which — let’s face it — has serious problems. Thorsten also had doubts about committing (again, in his case) to home-ownership in Joburg, especially in Brixton, a neighborhood we love but is not considered to be a wise investment — at least not on paper.

Eventually Thorsten and I realized that we don’t live on paper. This is real life, and this decision made sense for us in our current time and place. I’ve been living in Joburg, paying rent, for more than 15 years, and it’s time to admit I’m not going anywhere. Brixton is the neighborhood we know best and it’s where we want to live. So when we found out one of our neighbors, who we’ve known for many years, was planning to sell his house, we took the plunge and bought it. (If you have specific questions about costs and how we handled the purchase — it’s virtually impossible for me to get a loan here, since I’m not a South African permanent resident, so we had to work around that limitation — Im happy to answer those privately.)

Another look at the back of the house. It looks really cool from the front, too, but it’s a distinctive home and I don’t want to broadcast our exact location all over the internet.

Maybe I could’ve made this decision sooner, but I’m not mad that it took me so long. Thorsten is an architect — a very good one, in my biased opinion. So if I’d bought a house before Thorsten and I met five years ago, then I wouldn’t have had one of the best architecture firms in town, 26’10 South Architects, to renovate the house to my/our exact needs and specifications. That’s exactly what’s happening now, and while renovations are expensive and stressful, we’re having such a good time doing this together. We’re still in the early stages of the renovation but I thought I’d briefly describe what’s happened so far.

Our Pre-Renovation Joburg House

We purchased a modest, three-bedroom Victorian house, with an unusually large garden, built in the 1920s. The house underwent some changes in the ensuing decades but the original character is still very much there, with the original wood floors, pressed metal ceilings characteristic of Joburg Victorian houses, and wooden window frames and doors. Here’s what the house looked like on the day we took possession:

The kitchen/dining area, which faces north toward the back garden.

The lounge (living room) — currently very small.

The small third bedroom, which is on the other side of the wall from the lounge. We’re knocking down the wall between these two rooms to make one big lounge. This means the house will have two bedrooms, rather than three; we’ll be using half of the cottage as our guest bedroom.

The entrance hall. We’re moving the doorway to the lounge here, so you’ll be able to see all the way through the house.

Our future bedroom, which has one of the craziest fireplaces I’ve ever seen. (Unfortunately the fireplace doesn’t work, but we have a plan to get it going again down the line.) We’re adding a master bathroom, the door to which will be to the left of the fireplace.

Funny little storage space that will become the new master bathroom.

Timo’s future bedroom, which won’t be drastically changed.

Looking down the hall into Timo’s future bathroom (currently the only bathroom), which already looks great.

The entrance to the cottage.

The main room of the cottage (pardon the mess), which will become my home office. There’s currently a small bedroom and bathroom in the space at the back, which we’re upgrading.

Home Renovation Step #1: Needs and Options Review

Renovation planning in progress.

Before we even thought about starting the renovations, I did a lot of what a therapist might call “inner work” with Thorsten and his staff.

After many years of being an architect, Thorsten has learned that the worst thing he can do with a client is dive headlong into a building project before exploring what the client really wants and needs from the new space they’re creating. (Even though I’m Thorsten’s girlfriend and we’re renovating this house together, Thorsten and his staff are treating me, for all intents and purposes, like a normal client.) So we did what Thorsten calls a Needs and Options Review to figure out what we really want and need and come up with a few rough plans to choose from.

Thorsten doing his thing at the kitchen table during one of our first meetings.

The Needs and Options Review asks lots of questions, some of which I found difficult to answer, about how I want to feel in our new space and what kind of purpose(s) I want it to serve. Saying that I want to knock down the wall between the third bedroom and the lounge isn’t enough…The question is why, and how do I want to feel when I’m sitting in that bigger lounge? This is also the time for straight talk about budget, how much the project will actually cost, and how much we can afford to spend on the renovation.

Thorsten’s staff members, Gabby and Farzeen, working through the Needs and Options Review.

Playing around with different options.

As someone who has been known to jump into things without thinking them through carefully in advance, the Needs and Options Review was a useful exercise for me. By the time Thorsten’s team finalized the plans for the house and the renovations began, I felt like we were all on the same page and I knew exactly what to expect.

Home Renovation Step 2: The Project Begins

Once the inner work was done, it was time to move to the exciting part: Hiring a builder, choosing tiles, finding cool stuff at salvage yards and thrift shops, and knocking down walls. We’re going for an eclectic vibe and want to thrift as many items as possible for the house, so we’ve made multiple visits to salvage yards selling doors, windows, and bathroom fixtures. We’ve done A LOT of driving around very ugly parts of Joburg suburbia on our various quests, but so far it’s all been worth it.

Our first purchase for the house: A vintage yellow-glass window from Protector Build in Krugersdorp. We’re going to use it in the new bathroom.

Bathroom fixtures for sale at Protector Build. The bathroom sink we bought is somewhere in this photo. We also bought a new door for the cottage here. Our other favorite salvage yard is Independent Traders in North Riding, which I wrote about in a previous post.

We have grand plans for these vintage Liebermann tiles, which I’ve been collecting for years and never knew why until now.

I’m obsessed with this 3D image of the bathroom design.

Yes, we had to do that home-renovation-show thing, donning PPE and knocking down a wall when the renovation first started. It was very fun.

Renovations are officially underway.

We still have a long way to go and Thorsten keeps warning me this process won’t be easy. But so far I’m having a great time, and a big part of it is the cool architect/boyfriend (and his awesome employees) with whom I’m working.

Renovation Live Stream Announcement

To celebrate the progress we’ve made so far, Thorsten and I are conducting a live home renovation Q&A on Instagram this Saturday (1 Nov.), at 4:00 p.m. South African time. (Just go to my Instagram profile at that time to watch the live stream…I’ve never done this before so let’s hope it works.) If you have a home renovation question that you’d like Thorsten (or me) to answer, please submit it to me beforehand, either in the comments to this post or via social media. Several of you have already done so in response to an announcement I made on Instagram last week, and the questions I’ve received so far have been great. We’ll answer as many as we can!

My favorite renovation photo so far.

Expect more home renovation blog updates in the future.