By Alecia Odendaal

When I wrote for AfriForum Worldwide last year, our house was covered in dust, eyes red from crying most of the days (mine, not my husband’s) over a room that was still in the making, while my stomach was growing larger by the day!

The good news was that we met the deadline of 37 weeks of pregnancy with a room and baby room completed. My obstetrician was adamant that no building work may continue after the 37^th week of pregnancy, and of course I used the opportunity to keep my husband punctual. He was brave and at exactly 36 weeks and six days he laid the last laminate at about 19:00 the evening. He declared with self-contentment that the baby could come! Friends kept their fingers crossed with us that we would meet the deadline and messages with the end result were sent out that Sunday evening. Never again. I always say this and then we end up finding ourselves in all types of interesting predicaments.

Over the last two years I often stood looking at our project and wondered why on earth we had decided to tackle such a project. Each and every time the answer was the same: Why not? My husband and I are lucky enough that our outlook on life is the same – you only live once; do as much as you can in this life that you were given and be thankful for everything that you can indeed tackle.

Our housebuilding adventure kicked off in November 2021. We had sold our former comfortable, nice-to-live-in house and stored our belongings, planning on four months, which eventually became seven. We first went touring and officially started building in February 2022 in the heart of winter! Everyone could clearly see that we were greenhorns at building by trying to saddle such a crazy horse in the middle of the European winter. We had to get a roof over our heads and so we started working. We gave ourselves about three months to make a part of the house liveable. During these three months we rented accommodation in unknown little hamlets that we wanted to discover, but still close enough to klus – the Dutch word for work or build – over weekends.

Maybe it is fair to give you some background about the house (which made my mom burst out in tears when she visited us for the first time). We were itching for new challenges (as if moving to a new country wasn’t challenge enough!). One afternoon we both came across a house on the house market website in which no-one seemed to be interested. It was about 100 km from where we then lived. We went scouting that same day and our offer was accepted the very next day. Boy, our own house had not even been sold yet! Luckily, our then house was ready to be sold and the sale came through two weeks later. We could start dreaming. The house belonged to a recluse who lived there for 15 years after her husband had passed away. All windows were single pane or plastic; there was no insulation in the roof or under the floors. The front door was crept over by climbing plants, and the door window as well as the windows in the kitchen were all broken. The poor woman had therefore lived through so many winters without any insulation – and so could we for our first winter. Our plot comprises a main building, while about five meters away is another building that we have converted into a garage, studio with bathroom and study, as well as a bicycle shelter. If you walk past our house, you are on the banks of the Lek River, a beautiful view early in the morning.

But back to the battle to get a roof above our heads. We very soon realised that we would have to put in way more hours if we wanted to meet our deadline. And so, we started breaking and building after work, wearing headlamps, thermal clothes and gloves. The neighbours thought we were raving mad – we know this because they told us so!

Our first big project was to change the existing roof’s pitch. This meant breaking down the existing roof and rebuilding it. Thereafter, we had to lay the floors; we carried 60 bags of cement (they deliver your purchases here on the street), mix it and lay it ourselves, and it was only after midnight that we could sit back and relax. We never realised that you had to lay it in one go.

That first evening in March 2022 when we could sleep under our own roof – which we had rebuilt ourselves – I cried a lot. Who would have thought that two pen-pushers could build their own roof and floor for the first storey? I was immensely proud – and ice cold, because our heating system could not heat up the room sufficiently and these two South Africans still had a lot to learn about insulation to keep the wind from finding any and all gaps to come in. I didn’t like having to sleep with a beany for many a week, then getting up the next day to put on my work clothes, on my way to playing corporate Nelly, just to get back again that afternoon and change into building clothes.

Not long thereafter on a very cold winter’s day I felt sorry for a man who came to pick up our old steel. We helped him to load the steel onto his truck. Something went wrong; the steel slid from the bakkie and ended up on my foot. I broke my big toe and had to wear a moon boot for six weeks. It felt as if everything was even more difficult then. While my husband was carrying me into the house, the old man was running after us with a €10 note for flowers to say that he was sorry (although flowers were the last thing on my mind!). We still laugh when we think of the poor old man who came to apologise for weeks thereafter, promising never to ask a woman to carry steel again.  

Time went by and we completed things one by one; sometimes biting the dust, but we continued and prevailed. My parents came to visit us in the summer of 2022. I was quite worried about their reaction, but to my surprise they were very supporting, even jumping in immediately to help. This was until we returned from Italy after a few days there with them, when my mom suddenly started sobbing at the table that evening. She could not imagine us living like that, also that she and my dad would be leaving us in a few days to return to South Africa. Needless to say, they have been here twice again.

The project evolved into something much more than a house-renovation project, but we learnt so much over the past two years.   

It is a different kind of struggle when you really want a specific type of pipe that everybody in South Africa would know, while here no-one seems to have an idea what you are talking about. We learnt to Google pictures, then showing these to the hardware people, who regularly exclaim: “O, you’re looking for a …!”

So far, we have removed 900 m² of rubble and building material, including the clothes of the previous owner and her husband, as well as his tools that she had left there. We also inherited a grand piano with the house – and if there is one thing that we are not, it is musical. We therefore advertised the piano on the South African group and said that anyone who longed for their piano in South Africa may have this one. The reaction was overwhelming and a South African couple from Belgium came to collect the piano for their little daughter.

With the birth of our little son we put on the brakes, planning to complete the building in 2024. It is another thing to build a house with a small baby inside – this we realised very quickly when we started building in the first weekend of 2024. He is currently nine months old and wants to see and participate in everything. He therefore crawls through the cupboards and over plasterboards, enjoying himself tremendously. I really hope he does not turn into a builder himself one day!

Five trees have already been uprooted by the wind: four ended up on the roof and one where the cars park. The good thing is that there are just so many trees that the wind can blow over; the bad thing is that there are about 22 trees left on our property!

In between the housebuilding we decided that we are indeed in the restoration phase of our lives, and therefore purchased a 1964 Volkswagen T1 Kombi Bus. However, this time someone helped us with the restoration; the man is crazy about guava rolls from South Africa! So, in between delivering guava rolls and restoring the Kombi, Kevin the Bus was born and became part of our family. He is proudly parked in our new parking area that once was a swimming pool. We five (three humans and two dogs) travel all over Europe in him.

As our studio has now also been finished, we open up our house to people when we go on holiday, and in exchange they look after our dogs and plants. We use Trusted Housesitters and enjoy the concept a lot. Our first house sitter came from South Africa, Carla from the Cape. We enjoyed spending time with her before and after our holiday, and we were really sad for her to go to her next house-sitting job. In December we had two women from Peru living here, and recently a couple from Switzerland. We were richly rewarded with Swiss chocolate!

To conclude: We have often talked about what we have learnt so far and what we would do differently; we also have the regular deep discussion that go hand in hand with major decisions. My husband taught me to accept it when your friends offer you help. We have both learnt that we have different ways of planning and communicating, but that, at the end of the day, we can complete something as a team, no matter how differently we approach things. I have learnt that I do like comfort more than I thought. We learnt that with some things you have to think longer before doing it, but to also to be thankful for having a personality that take chances – a kind of a paradox.

Neither of us knows truly whether we will take on the project again if we have the opportunity. We underestimated the weather conditions as well as the dedication that it takes, as we both work full time. We enjoy life and all its facets a little too much to focus on only one thing. That said, we would not have been able to afford such as large plot of land and the privacy it affords. There is a sever house shortage in the Netherlands; consequently, property is quite expensive, and most people live in rijtjeshuisjes (one building comprising several houses built alongside one another, sharing walls). We would not have met the interesting people who have crossed our paths or learnt so much about ourselves. So, I suppose we would do it again, but one thing is sure: When next summer I sit on my porch with a house behind me that is fully restored, giving me some extra time on my hands, that glass of white wine would be extra delicious!

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Follow Alecia and her family on their Instagram page at Lifewithyou.homebase.

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