The building project

We are back with the story. Werner had asked me to marry in in April 2008 - and our wedding date had already been set - tongue in cheek - for the 6th of September that year. The children were delighted - what a blessing.

Keeping in mind that we would need extra space if we got married, we began looking at options for rooms and sleeping arrangements for all those children!

I had some outside buildings - in shocking condition. They were used as crude storage space, but the roof leaked and they smelled.

Werner, however, could see past the mess, and decided we could turn that into a computer room. That would free up one room in the house, which could be turned into a bedroom for the little ones.

So – in April we began building. I don’t think I have ever worked as hard in my life. One weekend, we had all the kids, and the next weekend – Werner would come over and build. We broke down walls, plastered walls, tore down ceiling, hacked out window putty, replaced 64 panes of cottage pain windows, put in a sliding door, pink aerolite , ended up redoing ceiling after I swore that I never wanted to see pick aerolite again! Finally – just weeks before the wedding – we painted and moved the computers in. Looking back at this beautiful room, it’s simplicity belies the amount of work it was to fix it up.

I will post a few before and after photos. It took us 7 months – and we did the majority of the work between the 2 of us. Only for laying of tiles on the floor – did we get someone in to help us.

After that room was finished – we changed the old computer room into a bedroom for the Carissa and Eric.

In the meantime, we decided to do a very simple wedding service, in my garden. How many people can say they got married in their garden?