A Stellenbosch family home, rethought from the entrance in
A six-month full-home transformation in the Stellenbosch winelands. Three children, two working parents, a house that had grown out of its layout. The brief was simple: make it feel like our family, not the family before us.
The house was beautiful and the family was tired. A 1970s Stellenbosch home with the original kitchen, the original bathrooms, the original layout — none of which were wrong, but none of which had been touched in fifty years.
Six months. A new architect on the structural pieces (kitchen extension, opened entrance, primary bathroom rebuild) and the studio leading the design, sourcing, and finish across every room.
The brief from the family was specific in one way and open in every other: make it feel like our family, not the family before us. Three children, two adults, a Friday-night braai habit, and a constant rhythm of friends arriving for the weekend. The house had to receive people without ever feeling staged.
What changed:
- The entrance and threshold — a new console, mirror, pendant, and paint colour. The first ten seconds of arriving home, rebuilt.
- A reorientated living room around a new fireplace.
- A full kitchen extension into the garden, with one quiet stone surface and brass detail throughout.
- Three bedrooms, full styling pass each.
- A new outdoor room — the room the family now spends most of its weekends in.
A signature project — the studio’s deepest tier — designed once, lived in for decades.
We bought this house thinking we'd renovate it ourselves over a few years. We were six years in and still hadn't started. Six months with the studio and the whole house feels like us.
The gallery