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The sober exterior gives no indication of the modern, open spaces inside. The shutters are closed most of the time to keep the summer heat out and for privacy on the “busy” main street. -
The lounge/dining room/kitchen is where Johan and Peter entertain when it is too cold (or hot) to sit outside on the back stoep. They saw the pendant lamps in the Dutch interior magazine vtwonen and went through great trouble to get them to South Africa. The chairs in the foreground are upholstered in Design Team’s Drum fabric, and they bought the vintage Kartell magazine rack at Vamp in Woodstock. (On the couch is Karel, the youngest of their four cats.) -
Standing outside the door of the garden shed, between two maiden’s quiver trees from Johan’s hometown, Vanrhynsdorp. -
There’s a pressing need for more shelves… The main bathroom already looks more like a library. -
Afrikaner kitsch gives the spare bedroom an old-world feel. The painting on the green door above the chest of drawers on the right is by illustrator and artist Piet Grobler. The lamp was made by Peter’s Dutch grandfather, an engineer, in Barberton. (Sagrys is lying on the bed.) -
Johan and Peter bought this (very deep) old bath for R50 in the early ’90s in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, and the towels in Istanbul, Turkey. -
The free-standing wardrobes in the main bedroom were made to order by a local carpenter. Asked to cut out small crosses in the doors (with the idea of putting in fairylights or LEDs to make them glow like in a kitsch Catholic picture), the carpenter got a little carried away. In-between the wardrobes are stacked plastic drawers. The painting on the left is While you were sleeping by Cape Town artist Karlien de Villiers. -
The former voorkamer, which has no windows, was first turned into a study and is now a library for Johan and Peter’s large collection of books and DVDs. They don’t watch TV but they do get around to watching about six DVDs per year… They have more than 200 DVDs still sealed in plastic! Most of the artworks in the room are $5 canvases they bought in Havana on a visit to Cuba in 2008. The kitsch Jesus bamboo curtain they found in Portobello Road, London. (Miems gallivants on a tub chair – her favourite spot, especially in winter.) -
The former voorkamer, which has no windows, was first turned into a study and is now a library for Johan and Peter’s large collection of books and DVDs. They don’t watch TV but they do get around to watching about six DVDs per year… They have more than 200 DVDs still sealed in plastic! Most of the artworks in the room are $5 canvases they bought in Havana on a visit to Cuba in 2008. The kitsch Jesus bamboo curtain they found in Portobello Road, London. (Miems gallivants on a tub chair – her favourite spot, especially in winter.) -
The kitchen island (an old theatre prop!) is where it all happens in this household – both Johan and Peter love to cook. The door in the background leads to the scullery/pantry and then out to the back stoep. -
The funky kitchen dresser was found in a shop in Greyton that sells bric-a-brac and antiques. The print on the left is by a friend from university, stylist and decor editor Jeanne Botes. -
The 10 m-long back stoep was built in 2012. Johan and Peter saw a table they liked at Vintage White in Riebeek Kasteel and commissioned them to make a similar one that’s 5 m long, using reclaimed Oregon pine.
PHOTOS Jan Ras PRODUCTION Sumien Brink WORDS Johan van Zyl and Peter van Noord
It may be on the wrong side of the tracks, but for Johan van Zyl and Peter van Noord this house in the Swartland village of Koringberg is home.
Johan says: “We met in the winter of 2005, the house on the corner and the two of us. It looked like a custard slice on the outside and a cross between an abandoned fireworks factory and a uterus on the inside, but we signed the offer to purchase anyway.
“‘We bought a weekend house,’ we told our friends in Stellenbosch and Cape Town, where we lived and worked, respectively, at the time. ‘What did you smoke/drink/pop/snort?’ they responded after they saw the horrible ‘happy’ snaps that had us gushing away like town-house trash about the ‘never-ending spaces’ that we were planning to ‘paint white from floor to ceiling’ to make them look even bigger. Plus knock out two walls built by the previous owners. Plus plant a garden where there were just two rusty old jalopies and a fig tree. Plus resign as soon as we could. Plus plant a vegetable garden and an olive grove…
“By April 2006 we had survived a builder who faked a brain tumour as excuse for running away with our money, we’d gone to court to recover an eight-door kitchen cupboard stolen from the garage, and we’d had to fend off an estate agent who wanted to get into the shower with us.
“In August 2010 we moved to Koringberg permanently.
“I now feel happy when I look at those old snaps when the house on the corner belonged to someone else… happy, because I don’t recognise anything.
“Still, it is a simple house with nothing fancy, like Koringberg is a simple village with nothing fancy. We come home and we know where we are, who we are. We know how we feel. We feel understood. Welcome. Home.”
Peter says: “Our house is right in the centre of Koringberg. When we stopped outside it for the first time, its location bothered us, tucked as it is between the main street and the railway line (with the house on the wrong side of the tracks), right across from the Spaza shop and the liquor store (the only businesses in town). Inside, however, the house turned on its charm: high ceilings, thick walls, large rooms. The location no longer mattered.
“The house has a colourful history. In its day it was a Jewish merchant’s shop and the place where farmers would bring their workers on Friday afternoons to get wine.
“It has also been home to some interesting characters, among them the sisters Sulene Steyn and the late Alida Jordaan who divided the house into two separate living areas – one of which Alida decorated with generous amounts of the brightest-of-bright glossy paint. Then, years ago, there was mal Elsie, who would sit on the porch and harass every passer-by for a candle and a packet of Marie biscuits. Apparently she had stacks of these.
“Today, it is the place where we live and work. Where we planted 180 olive trees and 20 fruit trees and 60 trees for shade and a lot of vegetable and flower beds. Where the cats have 8000m2 to frolic (and where the mice live in fear). Where farmers drop in to have a coffee or a drink. Where friends love to visit.
“It’s as if I were there on that day in 1919 when the first clay bricks were laid. Because the Wit Huis op Koringberg (White House in Koringberg) has become the centre of my existence.”
