Anne-apolis

  My daughter recently moved into a new home, so I will no longer have access to her old apartment where she introduced a number of great storage ideas.  I had a last opportunity to photograph these storage solutions, which included wardrobes in the bedroom, kitchen fittings and a bathroom refurbishment. These all followed a minimalist aesthetic, as she did not want the storage to be the focus in any of the rooms. The most minimal of all is in the bathroom - a floating shelf above the toilet with a plain white finish that blends in with all the other fittings in the room and indeed in the whole apartment. The shelf was used to display an air diffuser and some scented candles - essential for those long, relaxing baths at the end of a busy day.  A floating shelf in the bathroom As this bathroom is very narrow, all the fittings that she introduced are "floating" to enhance the sense of space and improve the functionality of the room. Parallel to the bath on the opposite wall...

  A couple of days ago I spotted an excellent example of Modernist architecture up for auction  in Houghton, Johannesburg. It must have been a jewel in its heyday, with striking three-dimensional treatment complemented by rolling lawns. It appears to be largely unaltered, offering plenty of scope for restoration. House on auction November 2024: all photos from auctioninc.co.za The entrance is very modest, emphasised by an overhanging rectangular volume on a slender steel column. The main feature of the house, the semi-circular bay windows, project to the right and the entrance door is tucked away to the left. The volumetric articulation has an affinity with the works of Erich Mendelsohn, the German-born architect who emigrated to the UK in the 1930s. This is interesting, as most of the modernist architecture in Gauteng is inspired by the French architect, le Corbusier.  The entrance Moving round the house, the bay-window motif is repeated, inviting the viewer to experien...

  There are  many ways that stained and coloured glass can be used in a domestic setting - for privacy, to reduce glare, to block an unsightly view, or to accent a space such as a stairwell. I have had the pleasure of spending the last few days with Elizabeth Beard , a stained glass maker from the UK, so it seemed like a great opportunity to get her thoughts on this art form. All the photos in today's blog are examples of her work in domestic settings. She has also done extensive work in commercial and religious settings, which we will look at in a future blog. Probably the most practical application of stained glass is to provide privacy: the glass can be coloured, painted or obscure (textured) glass or any combination. Strictly speaking, stained glass is painted with the finer details and the glass is the fired in a kiln to fix the paint. The term is loosely used to describe leaded-light work, fused glass and other variations of decorative glasswork. The photo below is a det...

  I am spending a week 'on holiday', house-sitting for a family member. She has just moved in but even in these early days it is interesting to see how she has conceived the spaces in this much larger home and how this differs from the more multifunction spaces in my own one-bedroom apartment. The most noticeable feature of her house is the spaciousness, from the moment you come in to the large entrance hall, with its beautiful timber staircase as the focal point. From here, the reception rooms open out in an open-plan arrangement with three zones, demarcated by a fin wall and a change in level. The lounge with a 1m level change  From the entrance hall, your view is attracted to the area that she has designated as her main reception area, the lounge. She has on order a much larger couch and we still have to put up all her pictures, but it is already looking very inviting, with the dramatic view through the wooden sliding doors. The dining area Directly to your right, on the sa...

  My apartment dates from the 1930s, when built-in furniture was quite a novelty so I have a very small built-in wardrobe in the bedroom and another in the bathroom that also needs to double up as a broom cupboard. Back in the 1700s, many Cape Dutch houses had a built-in wall-cupboard as a central feature of the main reception room, glazed to show off the household's best chinaware, but this practice fell away with the British influence on house design. Built-in wardrobes were very popular in the second half of the 20th century, as the Modern Movement in architecture became mainstream.  The question for today is what to do if you live in a home with minimal or insufficient built-in storage? One idea is to look at the past for inspiration. Back in the day, it was very common for a household to have a kist - a large wooden box, sometimes of hardwood and very beautifully detailed, but often very functional and basic with rope or metal handles. Sailors and people emigrating would ...