Ballantyne Park was our 2nd complete house renovation in Harare. Sadly, in our move to Australia we lost a bunch of photos. We managed to scrounge these ones from family and friends. I apologise in advance for the poor quality of some and a few humans in others!
The property was a very well-treed sloping block of about 1 and three quarter acres. There was so much potential garden-wise and we just loved all the trees. The house had a couple of lounges, 3 bedrooms as well as a separate cottage that consisted of a bedroom and bathroom.
It was our plan to join the cottage to the main house. That would create another room which we would turn into the master and en-suite. We also wanted to build a verandah off the front of cottage leading down to an open sitting area, BBQ and spa. Finally to join all these areas together, we would build a covered walkway along the front of the house.
The house before we started renovating
At the extreme left is an office, leading into the main lounge. The next window along is the dining room. The house drops down into the second lounge and three bedrooms.
In this picture you can see where the main house ends, unfortunately you can’t see where the cottage starts. It is to the right.
The house after our renovation
We converted the little office up on the left into the new entrance hall and built steps up to the entrance between the brick planter boxes.
The door where Buster the dog is standing is the new master bedroom – that was the gap between the main house and cottage when we bought the place. The new covered verandah and open patio were all part of the renovation.
We raised the roof height of the new master bedroom to match the height of the cottage roof allowing the walkway roof to fit perfectly beneath both.
The new entrance hall – we painted the pine ceiling with a white limewash to modernise it a bit.
The new master bedroom.
The main lounge looking out to the back garden. We used local welders to make all the curtain rails, tie backs and light fittings in a similar theme throughout the house.
Looking down from the main lounge to the dining room. Inside the house where are large column wasn’t appropriate, we used smaller ones with a wooden rail on top. You can see them separating the dining room from the 2nd lounge.
We carried theme of the pillars from the covered walkway into the house as well.
Christmas!
There was a large rock in the way when we were building the covered walkway. We decided to just leave it and tile around it! It’s close to Buster in the first photo and you can see it along the right in the second picture.
The garden
As you can see, it is a bit of jungle!
There was a driveway leading to a garage at the top of the block – but, it wasn’t in good nick and there wasn’t much room to turn. So we decided to cut out a section of the hill and put in a pre-fab garage. We turned the original garage into a storeroom and workshop.
This is looking down from the pool level to the gate – we cleared so much and put in a couple of extra parking areas. We also rough plastered the wall.
The new pre-fab garage – from the pool level again.
Looking across to the open patio and BBQ area from the covered walkway.
Thanks for looking through this complete house renovation of our Ballantyne Park home. If you would like to see other renovations from Zim or Australia – just click on these links.