Skip to main content

Knock it Down, Start from Scratch!

Wow! I need to blog so hard right now. We have been NONstop working on the house for the past 3 weeks, ripping apart everything, and fixing it all back up. We are not completely finished with the renovations yet, but I'll catch you all up here step by step. I'm finally back at home in Rubengera, taking the weekend off of project management, and guess what all I want to do is!? Write and think and talk about our project. 😍

This home renovation is a huge overhaul, and a ton of work. It started off so fast though! Let me show you how in just the first 2 and a half days, knocking down all our walls changed our entire floorplan and opened up the space in both our Main House and the Backyard House. They started on the Backyard House, so I'll walk you through that first. This was it when we first saw it:


It is VERY modest, and is meant to be the rooms for guards/cleaners/staff in general to sleep in and use. The landlords call it the 'Boys' Quarters.' This small square cement box is broken up with a cross of 2 walls in the middle to create 4 tiny rooms inside. 2 Bedrooms, 1 "kitchen" and 1 "bathroom," each with their own entry from outside. We saw this as major potential to create a whole guest house studio by knocking down all the walls except for the bathroom. Here's the Bathroom:



Here's the Kitchen:


And here's the same kitchen view as they knock down walls into the bedrooms:

 


It was incredibly insane how fast the work went. 13 men were just tearing apart the concrete and collecting it out. But look! One whole space! How lovely!!! Check out more of these action shots:






It was so much work, and so. much. dust. Everyone kept at it, most men just wearing flip flops!


All that hard work- and look at that beautiful open floor plan!


Also opened the space for an interior door to the bathroom. Things were happening back here! This is the space plan end goal which is now possible with all those interior walls gone.


And next! Into the Main House...


This house was built in the 70's when they used really strong materials, and really tough bricks. And it was noticed by everyone working. The Backyard House seemed to go down in just hours, when this one wall took the rest of the day.





In all the dust someone wrote, "Work is very hard" 😬



The next couple days this wall towards the right came down, revealing what used to be a storage/pantry room. It was painted the turquoise color. Breaking those walls down, lets us be able to use it in the future as a dining room! 

View from the pantry.

View from pantry towards kitchen and front door

View of large unnecessary hallway separating living room from kitchen 

Exposing the rebar while getting that pesky wall down!

Here comes the metal cutting machine!

Timber! Down goes the hallway ceiling! 

 
We had to get rid of that anyways! Now you see the kitchen wall is removed too. 

The main area has a lot of space. The hallway separating the kitchen from the living room was wasted however, and the pantry was not necessary. Check out the space plan for this house:


And voila! One step closer to this, with all the walls and rubble cleared out:





That is one happy Patrick! Our landlords however- I think had just realized at this point what a big project they'd gotten themselves into. They were scared for sure! As the days go on however, they're more and more reassured that in the end, this will be well worth all the work. The next blog will show our next steps, and choosing finishings to work with the designs. Please comment along here! 





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Brightest Kitchen in Kigali!

I'm so excited to share with everyone my latest kitchen interior design project, and the bright young woman who lives here!  Claire is a neighbor, a friend, and a client of NAFASI! She had just decided she was ready to settle into her Kigali house, but wasn't quite satisfied with it as her and her son's home . Luckily Claire called on NAFASI, had some great visions of what home meant to her, and we opened up her space into the cheery welcoming kitchen you see now!  This is how it used to look: Can you believe it!?!? Claire worked with her landlord, as she is renting the house, to share costs for the renovation. It was win-win for everyone! A lot of landlords are ready to make renovations on older homes, and willing to pay for the renovation costs that come with it. Claire was responsible for the interior design costs. This way the owner is able to get free design, and the value increases greatly on their home, and the tenant gets the home they actually wa

We've Waited Long Enough!

It is now time for the big reveal!!!!! I have had such a huge internal debate over when I was ready to share finished photos of our home in Kigali. While most of our friends would have said it was completely done 6 months ago (!) I still don't actually feel like it's really finished.   I'm still changing up porch furniture, debating curtains, and I'm not quite pleased with the legs of the island yet- to name a few!  However,  it is time to get the photos out there, and to move on with all of the other Kigali homes and projects I've been working on and need to share with you too! I will be sure to update the blog with all of my own home changes as I make them. And you know I will! ;) So let's take a brief home tour of only the best shots for now! Starting with our front porch. I hope you like it!!! Keep in mind, I could do this for you and your home too. ;) ( www.nafasiinteriors.com ) I added these breezey curtains for a vacation-y relaxing vibe. 

The Art House

Hey everyone! I'm SO excited to finally share the finished product photos for The Art House , our small backyard house-turned- Airbnb !! ( Click here to see the live listing on Airbnb! ) We chose the house we're in, almost solely because of this small separated house in the back. We asked if we could renovate it- like REALLY renovate it- and the landlords seemed positive. But it was a risk! (Read how we decided here on the blog .) We tore down the interior walls and renovated the space in May 2018. (You can see the photos of the the whole process, and all the before photos in this blog entry. ) Since then, I have been designing and filling it in to be the comfortable rental studio (equipped with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, work area, and bedroom) that it is today! ;) What a process! Please enjoy the big reveal of The Art House and all the love we put into it!  Bedroom Living Room  Kitchen  Work Area  Bathroom The Art House Exterior