Garden structures

How to Build Your Own Pergola This carefully designed, beautifully constructed wooden pergola looks rather grand and imposing. However, while it is certainly a relatively large-scale project, involving a fair amount of timber, there are no complicated joints, and you won’t need any specialised tools. You can simplify the project …

Landscaping Your Garden in Stages – Part 2 As we suggested in Landscaping Stage 1, it is usually not going to be possible to build in all the plants, features or utilities into a garden when you initially start to build a house. These are facilities that will normally be …

Landscaping Your Garden in Stages – Part 1 It is not usually possible to incorporate all the plants, features or facilities into landscaping your garden when you first build a house. These are items which will normally be completed over a period of years as extra funds become available. It …

Landscaping Your Garden We have divided this article into two sections: > Landscaping Your Garden in Stages – Part 1 & Landscaping Your Garden in Stages – Part 2 The reason for this is because when you build a new house, starting to landscape your garden from scratch is an …

By-Law Definitions for Planning, Building and Zoning These definitions are mainly, but not exclusively, extracted from the Greater Metropolitan Area of Cape Town’s By-Laws Planning and Zoning definitions and explanations. They do and can relate to terms and phrases used nationally by other Municipalities and planning departments. We will be …

A garden structure is not just a wendy house. I am just going to post a few pictures of things in the garden including a wooden shed or two so that you can get a few good ideas. Here is a small wooden shed that I built for a step-by-step …

What is “Minor Building Work”? Whatever you construct on your property needs plans, unless it is defined as “minor building work”. Even so the Act states very well in Part A: General Principles and Requirements (this was previously Part A: Administration), that any structural building work that is defined as …

 Conned by a Fly-by-Night Pool Builder Why you should use a pool contractor who belongs to the NSPI South Africa’s building industry is rife with problems, so whether you are building a house or a swimming pool, it is essential to employ professionals with the experience needed to do it …

Build a Treehouse the Easy Way This blog post is dedicated to Alexander (our boy who learnt to use a hammer at an early age) … and to Simon and his son Joshua (just because they built their own special December 2012 treehouse – which is what inspired me to write …

You Don’t Need Plans for Minor Building Work … But you DO Need Permission to Build Anything you build on your property needs plans, unless it is defined as “minor building work”. However the Act states very clearly in Part A: General Principles and Requirements (this was previously Part A: …