31 1994 – 1996: Dove Cottage in Montagu.

31 <> 1994 – 1996: Dove Cottage in Montagu.

We had made friends with an artist, Hannes Meintjes, and his wife, Margriet, who lived further down the street from us. Their house stood on a large double plot. The one section contained the dwelling house and the other had only an ancient cowshed that Hannes used as a storeroom. During the time we were in Montagu, Hannes had the property subdivided into two separate erven and put the cowshed-section on the market. He and Margriet then decided to sell up and move to Port Elizabeth, nearer to a market for his paintings. The house was sold but, as the time for the move approached, the cowshed-section still had not. On an impulse, and to assist them, I offered to buy the plot for R20,000 if it had not been sold at the last moment before they left. He came back within a couple of days to say he would not hang on any longer so I could have it for that price. The transaction was completed and the plot with the derelict cowshed was ours!

The cowshed stood close to the back boundary with the rest of the 400 square metres stretching up to the street in front. There was no evidence of a house having stood there at any time so we figured that the plot had been used as an ‘outspan’ by a farmer who had owned the house next-door. It was customary in those days (going back a hundred years) for a farmer to have what was called a ‘tuinhuis’ (townhouse) to use when coming to town by ox-wagon for supplies or when the family came for the weekend to attend the quarterly ‘nagmaal’ (communion service) at the Dutch Reformed Church. Appropriately, and by design, plots in town were large enough for a span of oxen to turn round in a circle and draw the wagon up to be unhooked next to the cowshed. We figured that this had been the case with this one.

Having acquired the property, I planned to renovate and convert the shed into a self-catering cottage to hire out to visitors and holiday-makers. The building consisted of one room only of about thirty square meters under a flat roof. The thick walls were of sun-dried mud bricks laid on a stone foundation. Apart from veld-grass that covered the rest of the plot, the only growing things were a Cape willow tree beside the side entrance to the shed, and a couple of grape vines along the one boundary. There was a retired electrician living in Montagu who had set himself up as a handyman/electrician whom we contracted to renew the fence along the front and erect a new section down the side between the artist’s house and our plot, and to install a new gate. Any gate that had been there had long since broken and been discarded leaving only one gate post which was not suitable for hanging the new metal car-gate. ( DorothyAnne kept the original one, painted it white and planted it as a feature in the garden — and we brought it with us when we removed once more to live in Cape Town! The post stands now in our little garden at our home in Bergvliet.)

Then the planning for the building started.

While waiting for all plans to be completed, I decided to use the large ‘garden’ to grow vegetables — pumpkin and squash varieties, actually. The ground had to be broken up and turned so we contracted Jurie, a local farmer who undertook that sort of work with his tractor and plough, to plough the entire piece and prepare it for planting. He immediately struck a snag in the form of roots in the ground which had spread from the Cape Willow to extend almost over the whole area! That increased the scope of the job because all the roots had to be ripped out and carted away. We could see it was necessary to remove the willow, which he did. Then with the ground clear, we bought a variety of pumpkin and squash seeds and planted them in rows. A farmer friend offered me some plastic piping and jets to set up a drip-irrigation system in which a nozzle feeds each individual plant — something very effective and more than useful in a dry region where rain seldom falls.  DorothyAnne and I set up the system and turned the tap on at a very low pressure, then waited for the plants to pop up. Experienced farmers around there warned me that the fruit would be stung and be lost unless I used insecticide but I thought I would be lucky and some would make it! None did and the whole crop was lost.

For the cottage, I visualised a pitched corrugated iron roof to replace the flat roof and a karoo-style window on either side of the front door. Then I started sketching plans and even made a cardboard model to take to the local architect. It was probably too small a project for him, however, because he didn’t say no but he also didn’t say yes! He just did nothing but somehow got to keep my model! We were then directed by the Hardware and Builder’s Supply store in Robertson to a draftsmen who occasionally did plans for them. He drew up the plans according to our specification and submitted them on our behalf to the Montagu Council for approval. I think  DorothyAnne may have come up with a different layout but it was my project so my plan prevailed! Some aspects such as the positioning of the tiny ‘bathroom’ (a shower-cum-loo) were dictated by the physical conditions, this one being that it was the most suitable position to obtain the required ‘fall’ for the sewerage to flow to the connection which had to be made in the artist’s adjoining property. (For that purpose we had also to have a servitude surveyed and registered over where the pipe would go — something which needed to be done preferably before he sold and moved away.)

The walls were to be stripped of plaster and lined with chicken-mesh wire to provide a good grip for new plaster. A strong ‘collar’ of baked bricks about a metre high had then to be laid on top of the mud-bricks to support the pitched roof and the gables at each end. In the final layout, which was completely open-plan, I had located the kitchen and living area in a larger section at the one end and the bedroom with the shower-cum-loo as a sort of ‘en suite’ in a smaller section at the other end. All neat and compact for the paying guests to come!

With the plans passed, we had quotes from one or two of the contractors that sometimes did building work in the town but their prices were so high that we got the message that they were really not interested in doing the job (none of them were based in Montagu). We then put it to one or two local builders who undertook small jobs around and about in the district and finally settled on a team of four brothers to do the work. They would provide only the labour and we would procure all the materials.

When one of our farmer-friends knew what we were about to do, he was very sceptical of redeveloping the old mud-brick structure and offered to bring in his team of farm-workers to demolish it completely so that we could build something completely new. We didn’t accept the offer, partly because we liked the historical background of the old building and also because had we done as he suggested we would have had to site the new building away from where it currently stood about a metre or less from the back boundary — something we were reluctant to do.

We ordered the bricks from the local brickfield and pockets of cement and a load of builder’s sand from the local Farmers’ Co-op hardware depot that supplied building and other materials to farmers in the district. Shaun, another farmer-friend, took me in his three-ton truck to Swellendam where we bought the gum poles for the roof structure.  DorothyAnne and I selected the doors, door frames and windows made of Rhodesian Teak at a supplier in Cape Town and carted them to Montagu on the bakkie. On a subsequent trip to Cape Town we loaded terra cotta tiles for the floor, making a full half-ton load (the full capacity of the bakkie). On another trip to Cape Town we bought a toilet bowl and washbasin and carted them up.  DorothyAnne located a nice kitchen sink at a shop in Cape Town and carted that up in her Citigolf. We contracted the retired electrician/handyman to do the electrical work.

With everything ready, the building operation commenced with plans being modified as we progressed.

The builders worked on the ground to bolt the heavy gum poles together to form the seven trusses for the roof which then had to be lifted into position manually and placed 80 centimetres apart according to the specifications. One afternoon we arrived at the site to find the builders and workmen sitting in high dudgeon looking at the building where five of the trusses were in place with just two more to go. They couldn’t manoeuvre them both in the remaining space! The builder asked if they could leave one out altogether and just move some of the others up a bit to leave just a metre on either side of the last one. This was contrary to the building requirements but there was really no option so we gave them the go-ahead — there would be no load on the beams as we planned to have no ceiling in the building. With the roof trusses in place, we ordered from the builder’s supplier in Robertson the sheets of corrugated iron which were cut to the required length and delivered promptly.

Once the roof was on, the electrician was able to lay the conduit for the wiring before the cement floor was cast, and the plumber (engaged by the builder) set the pipes in the walls before they were plastered. The plumbers also dug the trench to lay the sewerage pipe underground to the municipal connection-point next door.  DorothyAnne and I went once more to Cape Town to buy a geyser which had to be installed on a platform laid on the rafters above the ‘bathroom’.

When the electrical switchboard had been installed we had an experience that can only happen in a small town — with the meter in place it turned out that we had to have a pre-paid meter, supplied by the council, for which we would be charged R400. We objected because we had already paid for the rejected meter and, in response, the Mayor arrived at our workshop to apologise in person and assure us that we would not have to pay for it! We really appreciated that.

With the building work complete,  DorothyAnne and I set the kitchen sink in a pine cupboard of a type commonly available from timber supplier’s. We connected the drain pipe and the kitchen was operational! The taps, which we had bought in Cape Town, were plastic taps made in Italy, a new concept in Cape Town at the time but now common in the locally produced versions. The next task was to paint the cottage on the outside (except for the roof which we left to weather for six months), something that  DorothyAnne and I would undertake to do ourselves (we had had long practice of painting,  DorothyAnne more so than me having redecorated every home we had ever lived in!).

The cottage was nearly complete when the plan changed suddenly and dramatically.  DorothyAnne said to me, tongue in cheek, “You know, my father educated me especially so that I would never have to be a charwoman!” I protested that I would do all the cleaning and bed-making myself and she wouldn’t be involved at all but she was sceptical, and I knew that she would not stand by and see me doing it so she would inevitably pitch in and help. We abandoned the paying-guest project but then had a nice little cottage and no use for it but to sell it. But we made a bold decision — we would sell the house and live in the little cottage ourselves!

The new plan called for more work on the cottage. The single living space would have been enough for a casual guest-couple to stay in but for a permanent home and more furniture, more space would be needed. We measured up and bought flooring boards to lay on the beams to make a room in the loft. This created space enough for our bed and bedside cupboards at one end and for our clothes at the other end beyond the opening for the stairs. The staircase (more like a ladder!) was built by the carpenter at the hardware store in Robertson, brought across on a bakkie and installed. Once in place it quite neatly divided the ground floor into the living room area and what became  DorothyAnne’s sewing room. Up in the loft, a window had to be provided in the gable at one end, but one would not be allowed in the other gable because the building was not the regulatory minimum distance from the side boundary. To provide a through breeze in the loft, instead of a window the builder installed a frame to take a louvered cupboard door which we bought at a hardware store.  DorothyAnne and I later fitted a hinged ‘picture-framed’ pane of glass to keep the dust off our clothes!

The essential building work having been completed we signed off the project, paid the builder the balance owing to him and the rest was up to us. Before the floor of the loft (which was also the ceiling of the room below) was installed, the air-volume under the vaulted roof would have moderated the Karoo heat a bit, but now with the loft lying directly under the corrugated iron the heat would have been unbearable. So we took a trip to Cape Town (Bellville, actually!) and brought back a full bakkie-load of silver-lined polystyrene insulating panels with which we lined the entire roof. Nothing can overcome the Karoo heat in summer, but it did make the bedroom fairly livable!

(Sadly, not long after the four brothers had completed the work on our cottage, three of them died in an accident returning from a wedding or party when the bakkie on which they were travelling (a common means of transport in country areas) crashed or overturned.)

We placed our original house on the market and it sold quite quickly to a Professor of Gynaecology who wanted it for his mother-in-law to live in and also for him to use as a Consulting Room. We had a new decision to make — how best to invest the money from the sale of the house. Property was always a good investment (we had had a bad experience with the Stock Market and Unit Trusts) so the decision was made to buy a flat in Cape Town to use as a pied-à-terre. As things were,  DorothyAnne was traveling to Cape Town every second week to shop at Woolworths and occasionally the two of us would go down for a weekend. On these trips she (or we) usually booked into a Holiday Inn for a night. Having our own flat would effectively give us two homes and we could spend as long as we liked in either.  DorothyAnne went to Cape Town and, together with Suzanne, went flat hunting. I received a phone call from her from a two-roomed flat she was viewing in Wynberg. We agreed on it and she bought it. It was a good move and has proved to be a sound investment.

Now the move into Dove Cottage (as we had named it) was in full swing and  DorothyAnne wanted to complete it urgently before she and Jenny went to England over Christmas in December 1994. We fitted what furniture we could into the cottage and some that was left over we stored in the outbuilding of a house two doors away from the cottage — the sort of house and outbuilding we had originally wanted to buy in a country town! I had also previously bought, at a second-hand dealer’s, an art deco lounge suite for the cottage which we now had no need of. I sold it to someone in the area for less than what I paid for it!

DorothyAnne left for England with Jenny, and I was left alone in the new cottage for a month. It turned out to be a rather stressful time because I was called upon to minister to a woman dying of cancer and then to conduct a memorial service for her. That was the last funeral of my career as a Pastor. I was also doing the picture framing which kept me quite busy. As a surprise for  DorothyAnne, with the help of Tim and Marcelle, I built a car-port under shade-cloth for  DorothyAnne’s Citigolf. That turned out to be a bit of a joke because it was only just wide enough to accommodate the car! — I had used eight of the gum poles left over from the building and scaled the width of the car-port exactly to the length of half of a beam that I cut in two! It was a bit if a squeeze but it worked to shade the car.

The real work for  DorothyAnne and me started on her return when we painted the walls and laid out the garden. We had three long gum poles left, two of which we used to create a terrace separating the lawn from the level area in front of the house, and the other I cut in half to create another section retaining the area where I later had a wendy-house erected to use as a study. With the garden areas laid out, we planted lawn, roses and other flowers, and Brazilian Pepper trees in two rows along the front fence. We also planted two Karoo Pepper trees in the sitting-out area alongside the house. I carefully planted those the right distance apart to support a hammock when fully grown! Alas, I was not to see the day!

The wendy-house was brought up from Cape Town in six sections and erected on site. But it was a poor design and I had to line it with polystyrene panels to keep out the wind! But it worked. In it I had a table as a desk with my computer, a chair and a camp stretcher as seating for ‘customers’ (I was hoping to do business!).

Then we had a garden shed constructed for a few tools and our bicycles. This time the builder was a retired man from Durban who also was trying to start some sort of business after selling a bicycle repair shop that he had run for a while. I suggested that he could do business constructing wendy-houses using the fairly simple pattern of the one delivered from Cape Town. He built one for me but gave up on that idea after that first try — he found the job hard on his back with which he had had ongoing trouble.

I should also mention the ‘Dove Cottage’ tiles that  DorothyAnne ordered from Lieberman Pottery in Johannesburg and fixed to the wall beside the blue front door. With that touch, the transformation of the cowshed into a dwelling for the Suttons was complete (for a time, that is!).

After we had lived in the cottage for a while, we found the staircase too steep so we had another one built by the same carpenter, this time as a two-stage stairway with a landing two-thirds of the way down. Once again did I find workmen sitting with long faces! — the carpenter had miscalculated and the upper section was about five centimetres too short to rest fully on the platform. We figured it would be firm and strong enough so we let it ride much to the carpenter’s relief. One unexpected benefit from the open stairs (it had no risers) was that our cat, Catkin, was scared of using them which meant we didn’t have her sharing our bed with us as she had always done! To finish the staircase,  DorothyAnne and I bought some lengths of tongue-and-groove ceiling board and enclosed the area beneath the landing to form a cupboard for the vacuum cleaner and such-like (as is usual under stairs.)

The last job on the cottage was to paint the roof after it had weathered for six months. I did that, first applying two coats of zinc primer and then two coats of a proprietary brand of paint which works for walls and everything else.

With its red roof, white walls, blue front door and rose garden, Dove Cottage looked like a picture on a chocolate box. I wrote an article about the cottage and submitted it with photos to a country living magazine. The editor asked me to make some small changes and resubmit it, which I did. I received a reply from her to say that it was now suitable and would be published. We waited and waited but it never did get into print.

We lived in the cottage for two years. In the first year we still had the picture-framing workshop but  DorothyAnne was finding the heat in the shop unbearable so we sold the business  when two chaps — who had recently arrived in Montagu and had a stained-glass business they ran from their home — came in and indicated in conversation that they would like to buy a business in Montagu. Seizing the moment, I said “You can buy this one if you like”. Within a few days the deal was done and  DorothyAnne and I were out of a job. We had sold the business but I kept the Close Corporation hoping still to make some money in some sort of business. Up to that point I had been using the Toshiba Laptop which I had bought just before leaving Woolworths. I now bought an IBM PC (somewhat to Tim’s disgust who has always espoused the benefits of upgradeable platforms and he proved right because the IBM wasn’t upgradeable). I set it up in the wendy-house study and proceeded, with encouragement from Tim, to experiment with Telkom’s Beltel, which was the precursor to the Internet here in South Africa. But it wasn’t the ‘real-deal’ and when the Internet opened up with e-mail and the world-wide-web, I handed the IBM to Tim, bought a second one for myself, and he and I set up in business as graphic designers. In the next step we registered our own domain name on the Internet — www.activeweb.co.za — and moved into webpage design. Tim and Marcelle, operating from Potberg Educational Centre in the De Hoop Nature Reserve, signed up B&B’s and hotels in the region for hosting on our domain.